Shares of Enflame, a Shanghai-based AI chip designer backed by Tencent, jumped as much as 188% above their offer price on their trading debut Thursday, capping a wave of blockbuster listings by Chinese firms positioning themselves as domestic alternatives to Nvidia.
Enflame priced its initial public offering at 142.18 yuan a share, raising roughly 6.12 billion yuan ($912 million) by selling about 43 million new shares on Shanghai's STAR Market, a board reserved for technology companies. The stock opened at 410 yuan, peaked at 475 yuan, and closed up 179% for the day, valuing the company at roughly 171 billion yuan ($25.5 billion), according to CNBC's reporting on the debut. Retail investor demand for shares reportedly ran to more than 6,000 times the amount allotted to that tranche before Enflame shifted additional stock toward retail buyers.
The company remains unprofitable: it reported 2025 revenue of 990 million yuan ($147 million), up 37% from the prior year, against a net loss of 1.16 billion yuan, though the loss narrowed from 1.51 billion yuan in 2024. Tencent, which owns roughly 18% of Enflame after the offering, is also its largest customer, accounting for close to 84% of the chipmaker's revenue — a concentration that underscores how closely tied Enflame's fortunes are to a single corporate backer.
Last of the "four little dragons"
Enflame is the final member of a group Chinese markets have nicknamed the "four little dragons" of domestic AI chipmaking to complete its public listing, following Moore Threads and MetaX on the Shanghai exchange and Biren Technology's debut in Hong Kong. All four have posted first-day gains ranging from roughly 76% to nearly 700%, a run investors are betting on as a proxy for China's broader push toward semiconductor self-sufficiency.
That push has been driven in large part by U.S. export controls that restrict Nvidia's ability to sell its most advanced data-center chips into China, leaving a gap that domestic designers are racing to fill even as they remain years behind Nvidia on raw performance. Goldman Sachs has projected Chinese semiconductor capital spending will reach $82 billion by 2030, and Enflame said it plans to direct its IPO proceeds toward developing fifth- and sixth-generation chips aimed at closing that gap.
Whether the enthusiasm reflected in Thursday's trading translates into durable technology gains remains an open question: Enflame, like its three domestic peers, is still selling chips at a loss, and its dependence on Tencent as both owner and customer leaves it more exposed than Nvidia or AMD to the fortunes of a single buyer.
