```html Robin Li's biggest IPO is coming

Original Author: Wu Qiong

Original Source: Investment World

"It's impossible to grab a share."

This scene is unfolding at Kunlun Chip. Since submitting a confidential filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at the beginning of the year, Kunlun Chip's listing is drawing closer. Currently, there is a fierce scramble for cornerstone investor shares.

As such, Robin Li's largest IPO is emerging — according to foreign media reports, Kunlun Chip's target valuation is approximately $50 billion (about 340 billion RMB). If it goes public, its market capitalization will surpass that of Baidu. Given this scale, it's no wonder that Kunlun Chip is consistently viewed by outsiders as the most valuable asset in Baidu's AI narrative.

The outcome of Baidu's fight for a turnaround will soon be clear.

Robin Li's Largest IPO Will Surpass Baidu

Right now, sentiment is running high.

Looking back to the beginning of this year, Baidu announced in a filing that Kunlun Chip had submitted an application form (A1 Form) for listing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange through its joint sponsors on a confidential basis, seeking approval for the listing and trading of Kunlun Chip shares on the Main Board of HKEX.

Since then, Kunlun Chip's Hong Kong IPO process has always been kept under wraps. Half a year later, with IPO preparations advancing, Kunlun Chip has entered a critical pre-listing phase. According to The Information, the company has already started contacting potential investment institutions.

This represents the last window for investors to enter Kunlun Chip through the primary market, but the bar is high: reports suggest Kunlun Chip, during placement, will prioritize investors committed to purchasing its chips, requiring chip purchase values to be 3 to 7 times the subscription amount.

This means that for investors to secure a cornerstone share in Kunlun Chip, they must first "purchase affiliated products." As a result, purely financial investors might be excluded. Kunlun Chip favors industrial investors who inherently possess sustained purchasing capacity.

Ultimately, only a few will get a seat at the table. One investor told Investment World, "The competition for cornerstone shares is intense," with many finding it "incredibly difficult to secure a spot."

Undoubtedly, high hopes are placed on Kunlun Chip. Reportedly, its target valuation is around $50 billion (approximately 340 billion RMB). This isn't baseless speculation; according to IDC data for the 2025 China AI accelerator server market, Kunlun Chip and Cambricon tied for third place among domestic manufacturers, each shipping approximately 116,000 cards.

Earlier, a Goldman Sachs research report noted that if the market assigned Kunlun Chip a valuation multiple similar to Cambricon's, the value of Baidu's equity stake could reach $22 billion. With the explosion in AI computing power demand, Cambricon's market cap briefly exceeded 1 trillion RMB this week.

Hence, the fierce competition for Kunlun Chip's cornerstone shares has materialized.

Of course, Baidu will be the biggest winner. Recall that at the beginning of the year, Robin Li explained in the filing one of the benefits of Kunlun Chip's spin-off and listing: it would enhance Kunlun Chip's image among its customers, suppliers, and potential strategic partners, enabling it to win more business, while Baidu would benefit from its growth through its shareholding.

The effect was immediate. Following this news, Baidu's stock rose for four consecutive trading days, with its Hong Kong market cap exceeding 300 billion HKD. If Kunlun Chip achieves its target valuation of $50 billion, Baidu's equity stake as its controlling shareholder could be worth over 100 billion RMB. At that point, Robin Li would experience another highlight moment — Kunlun Chip's market cap would surpass Baidu's.

Investors Gather, Awaiting a Super Return

Secretive and low-key, yet it has become Robin Li's pride.

The story of Kunlun Chip can be traced back to 2011, with its predecessor being Baidu's Smart Chip and Architecture Department. A team from leading companies like Baidu, Qualcomm, Marvell, and Tesla embarked on Baidu's chip-making journey.

It wasn't until 2021 that Baidu formally spun off its Kunlun Chip business, establishing a new company — Kunlun Chip (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. The spin-off was accompanied by a blockbuster financing round, led by CPE Yuanfeng, with investors including IDG Capital, Junlian Capital, and Yuanhe Puhua, valuing the company at around 13 billion RMB at the time.

From then on, Kunlun Chip became widely known.

However, this is also the only time Kunlun Chip has publicly announced its financing. But according to Qichacha, over the past five years, Kunlun Chip has undergone multiple equity changes, with many well-known investment institutions taking their seats one by one — in July 2022, it added shareholders like General Technology Venture Capital, Sino-Belgian Fund, and Qianshan Capital; just half a month later, CITIC Securities and Linkin Investment also became shareholders.

In 2023, BYD, Zhongguancun Science City Company, Sanya Yuhai Fund, and China Internet Investment Fund appeared one after another; subsequently, entities including the Social Security Fund Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Special Fund, Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund, Shunxi Fund, and CSC Financial also emerged, making the investor lineup increasingly impressive.

Perhaps the listing was long in the making. In July last year, Kunlun Chip added 15 shareholders in one go, including a fund under China Mobile, a Beijing government guidance fund, the Beijing Shangaoo Juntai Fund, China Oceanwide Innovation Capital, and CICC Capital, a move that sparked considerable speculation.

To date, Kunlun Chip has a total of 57 shareholders. It is foreseeable that its listing will create another wave of collective wealth generation on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Backed by resources from its parent company, Kunlun Chip is already a force to be reckoned with. Currently, its main product is the P800, launched in 2024, competing with NVIDIA's A800. Using Samsung's 7nm process, it is primarily aimed at data center inference scenarios. Additionally, the Kunlun Chip M100, optimized mainly for large-scale inference scenarios, is set to launch in early 2026. The Kunlun Chip M300, targeting ultra-large-scale multimodal model training and inference scenarios, is scheduled for launch in 2027.

Compared to its peers, Kunlun Chip not only benefits from orders within the Baidu ecosystem, such as its search, cloud computing, and autonomous driving business lines, but also counts major state-owned enterprises like China Mobile, Southern Power Grid, and China Merchants Bank among its customers. The most crucial deal came in August last year when, in a centralized procurement project by China Mobile, Kunlun Chip ranked first in all three bidding packages, securing a billion-level order.

Like a fledgling leaving the nest, Kunlun Chip is stepping out from under Baidu's wing. At the recent Zhiyuan Conference, Qi Wei, Vice President of R&D at Kunlun Chip, revealed that besides supplying chips to Baidu, the company's commercial scale for external customers is continuously growing, with the proportion of external business now exceeding its internal supply to Baidu.

"An Early Bird That Caught the Worm Late" — A Turnaround Battle

Robin Li has been waiting for this day for a long time.

Speaking of which, Baidu was among the earliest internet companies to declare "All in AI." During the model war, Baidu's ERNIE Bot was one of the first domestic ChatGPT-like products to debut, enjoying considerable limelight.

However, reality has been harsh.

After years of market consolidation, the landscape for domestic large models has been set. On one hand, products like Doubao and Qianwen from other tech giants are gradually capturing users' minds; on the other hand, new AI entrants have also risen from behind. Last week, Zhipu AI briefly surpassed a 1 trillion RMB market cap. Although it has since fallen back, it is still nearly three times the value of Baidu.

Not to mention, DeepSeek's post-money valuation in its first financing round approached 400 billion RMB; Kimi's valuation also rose to $31.5 billion (approximately 210 billion RMB) in its latest funding round. In contrast, Baidu has repeatedly left the impression of being "an early bird that caught the worm late."

Given this situation, Baidu can hardly avoid feeling anxious.

The current moment represents an opportunity Baidu cannot afford to miss. Companies like Moore Threads and MUXI have set examples in the secondary market; Cambricon also reached a new market cap high; and most notably, Changxin Memory Technologies (CXMT) has successfully passed its listing review on the STAR Market... The explosive growth of AI computing power is visibly spreading throughout the entire semiconductor supply chain.

Within Baidu's AI narrative, Kunlun Chip is precisely regarded as its most valuable underlying asset. In early May, Kunlun Chip officially initiated its STAR Market listing guidance, simultaneously advancing an "A+H" dual-track IPO. Facing a fleeting window of opportunity, Baidu is desperately racing against time.

This reminds one of the assessment Robin Li made a decade ago: the era of artificial intelligence was coming and would bring endless possibilities. "For Baidu, if we can seize the opportunity in AI, in five to ten years, Baidu can become a completely different company."

If this chance is missed again, it will truly be left behind for good.