Economy
2026 Outlook
Power Players and Pressure Points
1/2/2026
1/2/2026
Chinese AI chipmaker Biren Technology soared 76% on its Hong Kong debut, kicking off 2026 with a bang.
Biren’s debut was the best first-day performance on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange since 2021. Its initial public offering (IPO) raised over $700 million, with retail demand oversubscribed nearly 2,400 times.
The listing follows a record-breaking 2025 for Hong Kong IPOs, where chip and AI firms powered the market’s revival.
Hong Kong topped charts last year as the number one stock exchange for stock market debuts, with companies raising over 34 billion US dollars in IPOs. That was triple the amount of 2024 and well above the rivaling US exchanges, NYSE and Nasdaq.
This was the first time Hong Kong took the top spot since 2019.
According to KPMG, the boom is likely to continue, with the record 316 active IPO applications in the pipeline as of early December.
Why Hong Kong? It’s a gateway for international investors and also serves the growing domestic demand for equity investing.
After years of tough regulatory scrutiny, China’s listing pipeline had slowed to a crawl. Now the tide has turned. Beijing wants to accelerate chip and AI development, and Hong Kong has once again become the launchpad for new tech heavyweights.
China’s IPO slowdown traces back to autumn 2020, when regulators halted Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group’s listing just one day before the debut in Hong Kong and Shanghai, scrapping what was set to be the world's largest IPO.
That shock triggered a nearly three-year-long crackdown on big tech, with Beijing tightening rules on fintech lending, platform dominance, and IPOs. With reforms rolled out and China's political aims shifted, the IPO market is once again booming.
While AI stocks zigzag in Western markets, with fears of a bubble growing, Chinese investors are piling into domestic chipmakers.
MetaX and Moore Threads debuted in Shanghai last month to huge first-day price pops of around 700% and 400%.
Recent chip IPOs have been oversubscribed by Chinese retail investors by thousands of times.
And more are coming to the market soon, with tech giant Baidu’s chip venture Kunlunxin preparing a debut in Hong Kong. It’s aiming for a valuation of as high as $23 billion.
Biren’s IPO prospectus flagged US export controls as a key risk. The firm, like many of its rivals, was added to Washington’s Entity List in 2023, limiting access to advanced tech.
Competition is heating up, with competitors in Shanghai and Shenzhen also targeting IPOs. Not all can succeed. MetaX's share price is already down 30 percent since its debut just a few weeks ago.
For investors, the challenge is separating transformative tech from hype. From Beijing's perspective, the strategy of fast-tracking strategic IPOs and building up a homegrown chip industry appears to be working — and it is not relying on a single champion.