Chinese artificial intelligence chipmaking champion Shanghai Biren Technology is raising HK$7 billion (US$892.5 million) to boost production of its graphics processing units (GPUs), joining a fierce domestic battle to capture Nvidia’s market share in the country amid a global AI boom.
“Customers such as cloud service providers, AI data centres and enterprise customers are substantially expanding their AI computing deployments,” the company said in the filing.
“Facing robust customers’ demand, the company takes the view that it is essential to maintain adequate capital to ramp up the production of the company’s next-generation [general purpose] GPU solutions in order to ensure timely fulfilment of orders,” it added.
Shares of Biren rose over 2 per cent in early trading before closing 5.4 per cent lower on Monday. The stock has surged nearly 150 per cent since its initial public offering (IPO).
The aggressive pace of fundraising comes as skyrocketing chip demand from China’s massive AI data centre buildout has sparked a race among local AI chip developers to scale up production.
China’s Biren seeks US$900m to fund GPU push and challenge Nvidia
