Shanghai's AI Boom: 5 Firms Go Public in a Month

Select Language:

On January 9, a new milestone was achieved as five artificial intelligence companies based in Shanghai completed their initial public offerings within a single month, marking a record for the city and signaling that Shanghai’s AI industry is entering a significant growth phase.

These companies—Biren Technology, MetaX, Insilico Medicine, and Iluvatar CoreX—cover a broad spectrum of the AI sector, from graphics processing units to AI-driven drug discovery, all having gone public in recent weeks.

Unlike cities that depend on isolated breakthroughs, Shanghai is developing a comprehensive industrial ecosystem that includes computing power, algorithms, data, and embodied AI. According to Song Haitao, director of Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s AI Research Institute, the city leads the nation in all AI-related domains. Shanghai boasts a fully integrated industry chain—encompassing hardware, software, GPUs, algorithms, model training, and applications—that rivals any other Chinese city.

The city fosters its AI development through an ecosystem centered around large language models. As an innovation hub, Shanghai has established research facilities like the Shanghai AI Laboratory and the Shanghai Center for Brain Science and Brain-Inspired Technology. It also hosts various industry innovation centers, AI labs, and accelerators, including the Shanghai Qizhi Institute, the Institute of Artificial Intelligence, China Telecom’s AI division, the Institute for Advanced Algorithms Research, and the Shanghai Academy of AI for Science. International tech giants such as Microsoft and Amazon also maintain branches in the city. Currently, approximately 250,000 AI professionals work in Shanghai—about a third of the national total.

In the first three quarters of 2025, around 394 AI firms with annual revenues exceeding 20 million yuan (roughly $2.8 million) reported an 11.4% increase in profits, reaching 40.7 billion yuan ($5.8 billion), and a 39.6% rise in operating revenue, totaling 435.4 billion yuan ($62.3 billion). The sector continues to grow rapidly and improve efficiency, with full-year revenue projected to exceed 550 billion yuan (around $78.7 billion), reflecting a growth of over 30%.

Powering AI is the essential component of computing infrastructure. Recognized as China’s GPU hub, Shanghai’s “Four Little GPU Tigers”—MetaX, Biren Technology, Iluvatar CoreX, and Enflame Technology—are now publicly traded or preparing for IPOs. Iluvatar CoreX, the first Chinese firm to independently develop general-purpose GPUs, has transitioned from core technological innovations to commercial deployment, according to company officials.

Shanghai’s robust ecosystem benefits from an established integrated circuit industry that has been cultivated over decades. The city ranks fourth globally and first in China for semiconductor competitiveness, based on the latest ranking by the World Integrated Circuit Association. Shanghai has developed a highly coordinated semiconductor industry encompassing chip design, manufacturing, packaging, testing, equipment, materials, and electronic design automation, with 35 companies listed on the Star Market, the most in the country.

The city’s manufacturing capacity is exemplified by AgiBot, which produced its 5,000th general-purpose embodied robot on December 8, 2025—an impressive surge from just 1,000 units earlier that year. The company, founded in 2023, rapidly scaled its production with extensive support from upstream and downstream partners, many located in the Yangtze River Delta region. Its expansion plans include a second factory in Zhangjiang capable of producing around 10,000 robots annually.

Furthermore, Shanghai continues to enhance its embodied AI training infrastructure, planning to establish the nation’s first virtual-physical embodied AI training center at the National and Local Co-Built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center. The city is also developing additional training facilities across provinces like Henan and Jiangsu, with standardized construction and data collection protocols.