US-sanctioned Chinese AI chip rival to Nvidia, Biren Technology, plans IPO

Artificial intelligence (AI) chip start-up Biren Technology, one of China’s best hopes for challenging Nvidia, has hired an investment bank to commence the required “tutoring” process, a precursor to an initial public offering (IPO) in the country.

The Shanghai-based unicorn – valued at US$2.19 billion last November, according to venture deal tracker Pitchbook – has hired the city’s largest brokerage, Guotai Junan Securities, to coach company executives on IPO-related issues, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said on Wednesday.

The tutoring process, which is mandatory for all IPO applicants in China before filing a listing plan, usually takes between three to 12 months. Neither Biren nor the CSRC has disclosed the planned location or fundraising target for the IPO.

Do you have questions about the biggest topics and trends from around the world? Get the answers with SCMP Knowledge, our new platform of curated content with explainers, FAQs, analyses and infographics brought to you by our award-winning team.

Biren’s move comes two weeks after crosstown rival Enflame kicked off its tutoring process, as more Chinese chip designers look to raise capital in the public markets.

Zhang Wen, founder of Biren Technology. Photo: Handout alt=Zhang Wen, founder of Biren Technology. Photo: Handout>

In China, the integrated-circuit industry has bred more unicorns than any other sector in the past three years, according to a report earlier this week by Great Wall Strategy Consultants. However, the country’s tech sector has been too heavily reliant on state-backed investments, which could lead to a “big problem”, said Fang Fenglei, widely known as China’s “first investment banker”, at a forum on Wednesday.

Biren counts venture capital firm HongShan, formerly Sequoia China, as one of its investors. The start-up had raised more than US$780 million from eight funding rounds as of April, Pitchbook data showed.

Still, Biren has tried to obtain more support from the Chinese government after the US Commerce Department added the company and its Beijing-based rival Moore Threads onto a trade blacklist a year ago, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter, who declined to be named because the information is private.

US sanctions have prevented Biren from engaging the service of world-leading foundries, including Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, hobbling the start-up’s chip production.

Founded by Wall Street veteran Zhang Wen in 2019, Biren is among a group of Chinese graphics processing unit (GPU) developers hoping to take advantage of the absence of advanced chips from Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices on the mainland. Under US export controls, the two California-based companies are barred from selling their best GPUs to customers in China.

Biren launched its BR100 GPU in August 2022, claiming it had broken world records for computing power. The chip received substantial media coverage globally and raised eyebrows in the US. The BR100 is no longer listed on the company’s website.

The start-up’s current offerings include the Bili GPU series, which has entered mass production, according to the company.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2024 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

link