Cambricon Technologies, often referred to as China’s “little Nvidia”, has reported record earnings and expressed strong confidence in its future growth, fuelled by surging demand for artificial intelligence processors.
“AI chips, as the core of computing infrastructure, are experiencing unprecedented opportunities,” said Chen Tianshi, chairman and co-founder, during an online event on Thursday. He added that the company would continue to focus on innovation in chip design to strengthen its competitiveness.
The Beijing-based firm has positioned itself as a domestic alternative to US rival Nvidia, aiming to supply China’s growing need for AI computing power. Cambricon stated that its processors are already being used on a large scale across several key industries, including telecommunications, internet platforms and financial services.
The company reported a 4,348 per cent year-on-year increase in first-half revenue in August, reaching 2.88 billion yuan (US$404.8 million). It also recorded a profit of 1.04 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 533 million yuan in the same period last year. This marks its best performance since it was listed in 2020.
Investor confidence and market surge
Cambricon has quickly become the most expensive stock on China’s onshore market, with its share price rising 544 per cent over the past 12 months. Despite a 5.1 per cent decline on Friday, closing at 1,349.24 yuan, investors remain bullish about the company’s potential to replace Nvidia in China’s data centres.
Confidence in Cambricon grew further after Chinese start-up DeepSeek announced its V3.1 model had been trained using a new data format, which it described as “suitable for soon-to-be-released home-grown chips”. Analysts interpreted this as a sign that Cambricon’s processors could play an increasingly central role in supporting advanced AI development within the country.
Chen Tianshi directly addressed investor queries for the first time since the company’s stock price surge, underlining Cambricon’s commitment to long-term technological progress.
Future plans and industry speculation
Looking ahead, Cambricon has revealed plans to raise 4 billion yuan from the mainland stock market. The funds will be allocated to semiconductor platform projects and software platforms for large-scale AI models.
Chen, who co-founded the company in 2016 with his brother Chen Yunji, said Cambricon’s next-generation processors would continue to evolve, with new microarchitecture and instruction sets tailored for training and inference tasks. These chips will be optimised for natural language processing, as well as video and image generation.
However, Chen did not answer questions regarding the company’s largest customers, a point that has stirred speculation among analysts and investors. Many believe Cambricon’s clients could include major players such as social media giant ByteDance and AI start-up DeepSeek, though no confirmation has been given.
As China accelerates efforts to build self-sufficiency in advanced technology, Cambricon’s strong performance and ambitious plans highlight its role at the forefront of the country’s AI chip industry.
