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China tech stocks jump after holiday, AI leads gains
Chinese tech stocks jumped as trading resumed after a holiday break in China.
The STAR 50 Index rising as much as 9.2% to a record high as investors bought semiconductor and AI-related shares amid a wider regional rally.
The move reflected strength in global tech peers, while the rebound also signaled renewed interest in AI hardware after years of weak earnings weighed on the board.
A fund manager at Beijing-based Jintong Private Fund Management told Bloomberg.
Stronger April services PMI data from RatingDog also lifted broader markets, with the Shanghai Composite up as much as 1.2% and the ChiNext Index gaining as much as 3.7%.
🔗 Source: Bloomberg
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
Explosive earnings from local chip champions are fueling the rally
- China’s market rebound tracks a sharp turnaround at domestic AI chip companies after years of losses 1.
- Cambricon Technologies, a Chinese AI chip designer, posted Q1 2026 revenue of 2.9 billion yuan (US$423 million), up 160%. Net profit rose 185% 2.
- The gains reach beyond one company. In the same quarter, Hygon Information Technology, a Chinese chip company, lifted revenue 68% to 40.3 billion yuan (US$5.91 billion). Moore Threads, another Chinese GPU startup, reached its first quarterly profit 32.
- MetaX Integrated Circuits, a Chinese semiconductor company, still lost money, though its net loss narrowed by about 57% 2.
A new AI hardware ecosystem is challenging Nvidia’s dominance in China
- These results are reshaping China’s AI market. A domestic hardware ecosystem is now taking share from Nvidia 1.
- Chinese chipmakers shipped 1.65 million AI graphics processing units (GPUs) in 2025. That gave them 41% of China’s domestic AI server market 1.
- Analysts expect Nvidia’s share in China to drop to about 8% in the next few years 1.
- The surge also brings risks. One buyer made up about 80% of Cambricon’s first-half 2025 revenue 1. Production yields are also low at key foundries, which are semiconductor manufacturing plants. Yields are the share of usable chips produced 1.
