Robin Li's largest IPO is coming.

Author: Wu Qiong, Investment Community

“Can’t grab shares.”

This scene is playing out with Kunlun Chip. Since submitting its application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under confidential filing at the beginning of the year, Kunlun Chip’s listing has been drawing nearer. Now is the stage when investors are scrambling for cornerstone shares.

So, Robin Li’s biggest IPO is starting to come into view—according to foreign media reports, Kunlun Chip’s target valuation is about $50 billion (approximately 340 billion yuan). If it goes public, its market capitalization will exceed Baidu’s. With an outfit this large, no wonder Kunlun Chip is repeatedly viewed by the outside world as the most valuable asset in Baidu’s AI story.

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

Robin Li’s Biggest IPO: Will Exceed Baidu

At this very moment, emotions are running high.

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

After that, Kunlun Chip’s moves for an IPO in Hong Kong remained largely under the radar. Now, half a year has passed. As IPO preparations have continued to advance, Kunlun Chip has arrived at a critical stage just before listing. According to The Information, the company has already started engaging with potential investment institutions.

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

That means if investors want to secure Kunlun Chip’s cornerstone shares, they must first “pre-load” inventory. As a result, pure financial investors may be kept out. What Kunlun Chip favors more are industrial investors that already have the capability to purchase continuously.

In the end, only a few will make it to the table. One investor told Investment Community, “The competition for cornerstone shares is fierce,” and more people feel it is “next to impossible to get a seat.”

Undoubtedly, the outside world has high expectations for Kunlun Chip. It is reported that Kunlun Chip’s target valuation is about $50 billion (approximately 340 billion yuan). This is not without basis. According to IDC data, in 2025 China’s AI accelerator server market, Kunlun Chip and Cambricon are tied for third place among domestic vendors, with each shipping about 116,000 cards.

Previously, a Goldman Sachs research report also pointed out that if the market gives Kunlun Chip valuation multiples similar to Cambricon, the value of the equity held by Baidu could be as high as $22 billion. And with AI computing power demand surging, Cambricon’s market cap once exceeded one trillion this week.

This is what leads to the scene of fierce competition for Kunlun Chip’s cornerstone shares.

Of course, Baidu will be the biggest winner. When thinking back to the beginning of the year—when Robin Li explained in an announcement one of the benefits that the spin-off listing of Kunlun Chip would bring—it was to enhance Kunlun Chip’s image among its customers, suppliers, and potential strategic partners to win more business. Baidu will also benefit from its growth through its shareholding.

The effect is immediate. After the news broke, Baidu rose for four consecutive trading days, and its latest market cap in Hong Kong exceeded 300 billion Hong Kong dollars. If Kunlun Chip’s $50 billion target valuation is realized, as the controlling shareholder, the value of Baidu’s holdings would exceed one trillion. In that case, Robin Li also gets another spotlight moment—Kunlun Chip’s market cap will surpass Baidu.

Investors Gather: Waiting for a Super Return

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

The story of Kunlun Chip can be traced back to 2011. Its predecessor was Baidu’s Intelligent Chip and Architecture department. A team from leading companies including Baidu, Qualcomm, Marvell, and Tesla kicked off Baidu’s journey to build chips.

It was not until 2021 that Baidu officially separated its Kunlun Chip business and established a new company—Kunlun Chip (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. Along with the separation came a high-end financing round. The lead investor was CPE Source Peak, with investors including IDG Capital, Junlian Capital, Yuanhe Puhua, and others. At the time, the valuation was about 13 billion yuan.

From then on, Kunlun Chip began to become known to the outside world.

However, this was also the only time Kunlun Chip publicly announced a financing round. But according to Qichacha, over the past five years, Kunlun Chip has gone through multiple equity changes, and a number of well-known investment institutions have taken their seats one after another. In July 2022, new shareholders including General Technology Venture Capital, China-Belgium Fund, and Qianshan Capital were added. Just half a month later, CITIC Securities and Linxin Investment also became Kunlun Chip shareholders.

In 2023, companies such as BYD, the Zhongguancun Science City company, the Sanya Yuhai Fund, and the China Internet Investment Fund appeared one by one. After that, more faces also joined, including the Social Security Fund Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Special Fund, the Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, Shunxi Fund, and China Securities Jian Investment Capital, making the roster increasingly luxurious.

Perhaps the listing move had been brewing for a while. In July last year, Kunlun Chip added 15 new shareholders at once, including funds under China Mobile, the Beijing government guidance fund, the Beijing Shangao Juntai Fund, Guohai Innovation Capital, CICC Capital, and more. The competitive mood was enough to spark imagination.

To date, there are 57 shareholders gathered behind Kunlun Chip. It can be expected that with Kunlun Chip’s listing, another wave of collective wealth creation in Hong Kong stocks will be generated.

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

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

Like a child growing up, Kunlun Chip is now stepping out from under Baidu’s protection. At the recent Zhiyuan Conference, Kunlun Chip’s R&D Vice President Qi Wei revealed that in addition to providing chips to Baidu, the company’s scale of commercialization for external customers continues to expand, and the proportion of external business has already surpassed the supply to Baidu’s internal needs.

“Starting early but arriving late” — the battle to turn things around

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

To put it simply, Baidu is the earliest internet company to shout “All in AI.” During the era of the “Hundred Models War,” Baidu’s ERNIE Bot made its debut first, becoming one of the earliest ChatGPT-like products in China and enjoying a period of glory.

But reality is harsh.

After years of competition and elimination, the domestic large-model landscape has taken shape. On one side, products from big companies such as Doubao and Qwen have gradually captured users’ minds. On the other side, AI newcomers have also caught up from behind. Last week, Zhipu’s market cap once exceeded one trillion. Although it has since fallen back, it is still nearly three times Baidu’s.

Not to mention that DeepSeek’s post-first-round financing valuation is close to 400 billion yuan, and Kimi’s valuation has also risen to $31.5 billion (approximately 210 billion yuan) in a new round of financing. Looking back at Baidu, it has repeatedly left the outside world with the impression of “starting early but arriving late.”

Under these circumstances, it is hard for Baidu not to feel anxious.

Right now is the opportunity that Baidu cannot afford to miss. Moore Threads, Celestial Memory, and others have already set examples in the secondary market; Cambricon also once reached a new market cap high; and even more eye-catching is Changxin Technology, whose STAR Market IPO has already successfully passed the review. It is clearly visible that the explosive growth of AI computing power is being passed through 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 started STAR Market listing guidance and simultaneously advanced the “A+H” dual-track IPO. Facing a fleeting window of opportunity, Baidu is racing against time with all its effort.

This also brings to mind that ten years ago, Robin Li once 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 out again, it will truly fall behind for good.