China’s ‘little Nvidia’ sees 4,348% revenue surge amid AI stock frenzy

Cambricon Technologies, the Beijing-based chipmaker seen as a potential alternative to Nvidia’s graphics processing units (GPUs), reported a record revenue surge in the first half amid a Chinese stock market frenzy driven by DeepSeek’s breakthrough AI models.

Cambricon’s revenue surged 4,348 per cent year on year to 2.88 billion yuan (US$403.8 million) in the first six months of 2025, a record high for the company since it went public in 2020.

Profit reached 1.04 billion yuan, reversing a net loss of 533 million yuan seen in the first half of 2024, according to its financial report filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on Tuesday.

The company’s shares surged 6 per cent on Wednesday morning to trade at 1,408.9 yuan per share, continuing a rally that has seen a nearly 10-fold increase over the past two years.

The stock has more than doubled over the past month, leading an AI-driven stock market frenzy that got a further boost after Chinese start-up DeepSeek said its latest V3.1 model was trained using a new data format which was “suitable for home-grown chips soon to be released”.

Cambricon attributed the revenue surge to its “continued market expansion and active support for the implementation of AI applications”, according to the financial report.