A few days ago we said that the Chinese company Moore Threads Had an Amazing Stock Market Debut. Today history repeats itself with Meta X, a GPU manufacturer and another of the companies that wants to hold the title of “the Chinese NVIDIA.” If Moore Threads already surprised by shooting up 500% in the stock market, MetaX has just said “hold my cap.”
MetaX goes public. We have talked about the company in the past and today they are in the news because, as we said, they have gone public following in the footsteps of Moore Threads. The market response has seen its share price skyrocket from 104.66 yuan to a whopping 824.50 yuan, an increase of 688% that has raised its valuation to 280 billion yuan, almost $40 billion. According to South China Morning Postis the third most successful Star Market debut so far this year.
Why is it important. The market reaction to companies such as MetaX or previously Moore Threads highlights the interest in creating domestic alternatives to NVIDIA chips. Furthermore, it happens at the moment when The US has given permission for NVIDIA to sell its H200 chips. Although there are companies that prefer American chipsthe appetite for creating competitive alternatives is fierce.
MetaX. It was founded just five years ago by three former AMD employees, including Chen Weiliang, the company’s current CEO. Its main product is GPUs intended for training and executing AI models. Just like NVIDIA, MetaX operates under the ‘fable’ modelthat is, they do not have factories and what they do is design the GPUs from their headquarters in Shanghai, so that they are manufactured in third-party plants such as TSMC’s in Taiwan.
Compatibility. Its first GPU intended for AI training, the C500, was launched in 2023 and stood out for its compatibility with CUDA, NVIDIA’s programming platform. This allows them to run existing software without having to rewrite the codeis the same path that Moore Threads took with its own GPUs. The new model, the C600, is about to enter mass production and the C700 is already in the development phase. They also have the N line, which are more basic chips for inference and video processing.
Power. They count in Nikkei Asia that MetaX has recognized that its technology is still behind what NVIDIA offers, but by how much? The C500 GPU offers 15 TFLOPS of power, which is about 75% of the power of the NVIDIA A100. In the case of the N100, it offers approximately 50% power of the NVIDIA A30. It is far behind the American giant, but that has not stopped investors.
A big ‘but’. Not everything is so pretty. MetaX is in the same situation as many AI companies: it is not yet generating revenue. So far this year they have invoiced 1,230 million yuan, a figure that is five times that of 2024, but with losses of 345 million. Moore Threads is in a similar situation and despite its big IPO, it warned investors that its chips have not yet generated revenue, which caused the share price to drop 20%. In the end it seems that the high expectations about the AI boom are not just an American thing.
Image | MetaX
In Xataka | Moore Threads is the real NVIDIA of China. So much so that the US considers it a threat
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