Chinese artificial intelligence startup MiniMax Group led a flurry of six initial public offerings in Hong Kong on Wednesday worth a combined HK$16.7 billion ($2.15 billion), exchange filings showed, as AI and semiconductor companies fuel a late-year revival in the city’s equity markets.
Hong Kong has raised $36.5 billion from 114 new listings in 2025, marking its strongest year since 2021 and more than tripling the roughly $11.3 billion raised in 2024, according to LSEG data. The momentum is being driven largely by investor appetite for Chinese AI and chipmakers, setting expectations for a strong pipeline into 2026.
MiniMax is seeking to raise up to HK$4.19 billion by offering 25.4 million shares priced between HK$151.00 and HK$165.00 ahead of a January 9 debut. The IPO would value the company at around $6.5 billion. Founded in early 2022 by former SenseTime executive Yan Junjie, MiniMax develops multimodal large language models including MiniMax M1, Hailuo-02, Speech-02 and Music-01, capable of processing text, audio, images, video and music.
Semiconductor firms OmniVision Integrated Circuits and GigaDevice Semiconductor have also launched bookbuilding for their Hong Kong IPOs, each targeting about $600 million. Analyst Lian Jye Su of Omdia said the surge in approvals reflects a policy shift toward accelerating AI development by giving startups access to public capital markets, even as U.S. chip restrictions persist.
MiniMax is among the first wave of Chinese large language model developers to seek a Hong Kong listing. Rival Zhipu AI began its own offering a day earlier, aiming to raise HK$4.35 billion at a valuation of HK$51.2 billion.
Investor interest in Chinese AI stocks has climbed following the rise of DeepSeek, a domestic alternative to ChatGPT, and recent high-profile deals such as Meta’s acquisition of Manus. Several other AI and chip companies, including ChangXin Memory Technologies and Baidu’s AI chip unit Kunlunxin, are also preparing listings, Reuters has reported.
MiniMax has secured cornerstone investments from Alibaba, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Boyu and Mirae Asset, according to its prospectus. OmniVision and GigaDevice also attracted prominent cornerstone investors.
The year-end rush continues, with semiconductor designer Shanghai Biren Technology set to debut on Friday, followed in early January by listings from Zhipu AI, Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor and Shenzhen Edge Medical, extending Hong Kong’s IPO momentum into 2026.
