China’s Nvidia challengers Moore Threads and MetaX are set for their hotly anticipated market debuts, driven by investor excitement over domestic demand for home-grown graphics processing units (GPUs) amid Beijing’s tech self-sufficiency drive.
Beijing-based GPU maker Moore Threads, which was 4,000 times oversubscribed after launching its 8 billion yuan (US$1.13 billion) initial public offering (IPO) last week, will be listed on Shanghai’s Nasdaq-style Star Market on Friday, according to a company filing on Wednesday.
Moore Threads opened a subscription lottery last week at 114.28 yuan per share, the highest pricing among A-share listings this year, and retail investors scrambled to secure a piece of the action, driving the final allotment rate down to just 0.036 per cent.
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Shanghai-based MetaX set its IPO pricing at 104.66 yuan, according to a company filing on Wednesday. MetaX aims to raise 4.2 billion yuan from the listing.
Both companies – known as “fabless” chipmakers because they outsource fabrication of their chips to foundries – are closely watched for their efforts to develop home-grown alternatives to Nvidia GPUs.
MetaX’s flagship general-purpose C600 GPU offers performance specs somewhere between Nvidia’s A100 and H100 chips, Chen Weiliang, chairman and general manager of the company, said during an online roadshow on Thursday.
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