Robin Li's largest IPO is coming

“Can’t get the cornerstone shares.”

This scene is unfolding at Kunlun Chip. Since the company filed its listing application with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in confidence at the start of this year, Kunlun Chip’s path to going public has been getting closer. This is now the stage where people are fighting to secure cornerstone shares.

So, it’s time to look at the biggest IPO of Robin Li—according to foreign media reports, Kunlun Chip’s target valuation is about $50 billion (approximately RMB 340 billion). If it goes public, its market value will exceed Baidu’s. With a scale like this, no wonder Kunlun Chip is always regarded by the outside world as the most valuable asset in Baidu’s AI story.

This battle for Baidu’s turnaround will be decided soon.

Robin Li’s biggest IPO: will exceed Baidu

At this moment, emotions are running high.

Let’s rewind to early this year. Baidu issued a formal announcement stating that Kunlun Chip, through its joint sponsors, has submitted its listing application forms to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in a confidential manner (Form A1), seeking approval for Kunlun Chip shares to be listed and traded on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in China.

After that, Kunlun Chip’s moves for its Hong Kong IPO remained largely under wraps. Now half a year has passed. With IPO preparations continuing, Kunlun Chip has reached a key stage just before listing. According to The Information, the company has already begun engaging with potential investment institutions.

This is the final window for investors to enter Kunlun Chip through the primary market, but the threshold is not low. Reports say that during the allocation, Kunlun Chip gives priority to investors that commit to purchasing chips, requiring the value of the chips purchased to reach 3 to 7 times the subscription amount.

This means that if investors want to obtain Kunlun Chip’s cornerstone shares, they have to “secure supply” first. As a result, purely financial investors may be kept out. Kunlun Chip favors industrial investors—those that already have the ability to sustain ongoing purchases.

In the end, only a small number can get a seat at the table. An investor told Investment World, “Competition for cornerstone shares is fierce,” and that for more people, it’s “next to impossible to get even one.”

Without a doubt, the outside world has high expectations for Kunlun Chip. It’s understood that Kunlun Chip’s target valuation is about $50 billion (approximately RMB 340 billion). This isn’t just speculation. According to IDC data, in 2025 China’s AI accelerator server market, Kunlun Chip and Cambricon are tied for third among domestic vendors, shipping roughly 116,000 cards each.

Earlier, a Goldman Sachs research report pointed out that if the market grants Kunlun Chip valuation multiples similar to Cambricon, the value of the equity Baidu holds could be as high as $22 billion. And with AI computing power demand exploding, Cambricon’s market cap briefly exceeded one trillion this week.

That’s why we’re seeing the scene of intense competition for Kunlun Chip’s cornerstone shares.

Of course, Baidu will be the biggest winner. Thinking back to the beginning of the year, Robin Li explained in its announcement that one of the benefits of Kunlun Chip’s spinoff listing would be to enhance Kunlun Chip’s image among its customers, suppliers, and potential strategic partners, in order to win more business. Baidu would also benefit from its growth through its shareholding.

The effect has been immediate. After the news broke, Baidu rose for four consecutive trading days, and its latest market cap in Hong Kong surpassed 300 billion HKD. If Kunlun Chip’s $50 billion target valuation is achieved, then as the controlling shareholder, the value of Baidu’s stake would exceed one trillion. In that case, Robin Li is getting yet another high point—Kunlun Chip’s market cap will surpass Baidu’s.

Investors flock in: waiting for a super return

Secretive and low-key, yet it has already become Robin Li’s proud work.

Kunlun Chip’s story can be traced back to 2011, when it began as Baidu’s Intelligent Chip and Architecture Department. A team from leading companies including Baidu, Qualcomm, Marvell, and Tesla started Baidu’s chip-making journey.

It wasn’t until 2021 that Baidu officially separated and established its Kunlun chip business as an independent unit, founding a new company—Kunlun Chip (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. Alongside the spin-off came a lavish financing round led by CPE Source Peak. Investors included IDG Capital, Junlian Capital, Yuanhe Puhua, and others, with a valuation of about 13 billion RMB at the time.

Since then, Kunlun Chip has become known to the outside world.

However, this was also the only time Kunlun Chip publicly announced financing. But according to Qichacha, over the five-year period Kunlun Chip went through multiple equity changes, with many well-known investment institutions taking their turns at the table. In July 2022, new shareholders such as General Technology Venture Capital, China-Belgium Fund, and Qianshan Capital were added. Only half a month later, CITIC Securities and Linxin Investment also became shareholders.

In 2023, BYD, the Zhongguancun Science City company, Sanya Yuhai Fund, the China Internet Investment Fund, and others appeared one after another. After that, there was no shortage of recognizable names such as the Social Security Fund Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Special Fund, the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, Shunxi Fund, CITIC Construction Investment Capital, and more—making the lineup increasingly luxurious.

Perhaps the listing move had already been brewing. Last July, Kunlun Chip added 15 new shareholders in one sweep, including funds under China Mobile, a Beijing government-guided fund, Beijing Shangaogao Juntai Fund, Guohai Innovation Capital, CICC Capital, and others—its competitive undertone is hard to ignore.

To date, Kunlun Chip has 57 shareholders in total. It can be expected that, with Kunlun Chip’s listing, it will create yet another wave of collective wealth creation in Hong Kong stocks.

Backed by resources from big tech companies, Kunlun Chip is already not to be underestimated. Currently, Kunlun Chip’s flagship product is the P800, which was launched in 2024. It targets the data center inference scenario, benchmarked against NVIDIA’s A800, and uses Samsung’s 7nm process. In addition, the Kunlun Chip M100—mainly optimized for large-scale inference scenarios—will be launched in early 2026. Kunlun Chip M300 is mainly aimed at ultra-large-scale multimodal model training and inference scenarios, and is planned to be launched in 2027.

Compared with its peers, Kunlun Chip has not only orders supported by internal business lines such as search, cloud computing, and autonomous driving, but also large state-owned enterprise customers such as China Mobile, China Southern Power Grid, and China Merchants Bank. Among the most critical deals was last August: in China Mobile’s centralized procurement project, Kunlun Chip ranked first in all three bid packages, winning a billion-level order.

“Like father, like son—our child has grown up”: Kunlun Chip is stepping out from Baidu’s protection. At the recent Zhiyuan Conference, Kunlun Chip’s R&D Vice President Qi Wei revealed that besides supplying chips to Baidu, the company’s commercialization scale for external customers has continued to expand. At present, the proportion of external business is already greater than that of supplying within Baidu.

“A head start but a late finish”: a battle to turn the tables

This day—Robin Li has been waiting a long time for it.

To put it simply, Baidu is the internet company that called out “All in AI” the earliest. During the battle of large-scale model products, Baidu’s ERNIE Bot was the first to appear, becoming one of the earliest ChatGPT-like products in China and enjoying great glory for a time.

But reality is harsh.

After years of waves sifting through sand, the landscape of domestic large models has settled. On one side, products from big companies like Doubao and Qwen have gradually captured users’ minds; on the other side, AI newcomers have also caught up from behind. Last week, Zhipu AI’s market cap briefly exceeded one trillion. Even though it has since fallen back, it is still nearly three times Baidu.

Not to mention DeepSeek’s post-investment valuation after its first round of financing, which is close to 400 billion RMB; Kimi’s valuation also rose to $315 million (approximately RMB 210 billion) in a new round of financing. By contrast, Baidu has repeatedly left the outside world with the impression of “a head start but a late finish.”

In this situation, it’s hard for Baidu not to feel anxious.

Right now is exactly the opportunity Baidu cannot afford to miss. Moore Threads and Muxi, among others, have set examples in the secondary market; Cambricon also once reached a new market cap high. More eye-catching still is Changxin Technology—its STAR Market IPO has already successfully passed the review. Clearly visible: the explosive growth of AI computing power is being transmitted to the entire semiconductor industry chain.

And in Baidu’s AI story, Kunlun Chip is precisely seen as the most valuable underlying asset. In early May, Kunlun Chip officially began STAR Market IPO guidance, while simultaneously advancing the “A+H” dual-track IPO. Facing a window that is fleeting, Baidu is racing desperately to seize it.

This naturally brings to mind that ten years ago, Robin Li already judged that the era of artificial intelligence was coming and would bring endless possibilities. “For Baidu, if it can seize the opportunity of artificial intelligence, in five to ten years, Baidu can become a completely different company.”

If it misses it again, it will truly fall behind for good.

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