Chinese Nvidia rival Enflame soars 206% on stock market debut as AI demand stays hot

Chinese chipmaker Enflame, which is developing domestic alternatives to U.S. rivals like Nvidia, has seen its stock soar 206% after debuting in Shanghai.

The company saw huge demand, with its initial retail offering drawing orders for over 6,000 times the shares available before it reallocated more stock to that group.

Enflame, which is backed by tech giant Tencent, is considered one of China's so-called "four little dragons" of AI chipmaking and is the last of that group to go public.

The other three all surged on listing, and have remained higher since. In December, MetaX soared nearly 700% on its first day of trading, while Moore Threads gained over 400% on its trading debut. Biren jumped 76% on its IPO in January.

Investors are betting on the ability of domestic AI chipmakers to replace Nvidia in China. International chipmakers led by Nvidia accounted for nearly 60% of China's AI accelerator market in 2025, according to IDC data cited in Enflame's prospectus, translated by CNBC.

Nvidia has seen its exports in China's data center compute market shuttered by U.S. export controls and Beijing's lukewarm interest in importing advanced chips as the country pursues tech self-sufficiency.

China's semiconductor buildout is accelerating. Goldman Sachs said in an August report that growing foundation models and AI applications in China were driving development across AI chips, foundries, memory and advanced packaging. 

The analysts expect China's semiconductor capital spending to reach $82 billion by 2030, driven by capacity expansion in memory and advanced nodes amid a growing generative AI trend.

Local startups such as Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 closed the gap to the frontier with leading U.S. models, and Chinese AI systems are seeing growing uptake across the globe. Rival Z.ai said its GLM-5.3-Flash model runs entirely on China-made chips. Analysts said the company likely used a combination of chips from leading Chinese domestic player Huawei, as well as chips from Enflame and other local companies.

Alibaba is also developing its own AI chips and accompanying software, as well as optimizing systems for leading Chinese models.

Founded in 2018, Enflame is building AI processors as China looks to boost its efforts in model building amid major capability gains from domestic developers.

Enflame said it plans to use proceeds from the listing to develop and commercialize its fifth- and sixth-generation AI chips, as it seeks to match the performance of high-end products from international rivals.

The company reported revenue of 990 million yuan ($147 million) in 2025, up from 722 million yuan a year earlier, but has yet to turn a profit.

Tech hardware has become a key driver of Chinese stock performance in recent months.

In July, shares of chipmaker CXMT, which makes dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) chips, a key feature of some AI systems, soared nearly 466% in their debut on Shanghai's tech-heavy STAR Market, making CXMT the most valuable China-listed company.