Moore Threads, founded in 2020 by former Nvidia China head James Zhang Jianzhong, develops graphics processors for gaming and AI workloads and aims to accelerate its move toward profitability

Moore Threads – widely viewed as China’s closest challenger to Nvidia – has drawn an extraordinary response to its planned $1.1 billion IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market. Latest media reports show the issue has been subscribed 4,126 times, with total bids reaching about $4.54 trillion, an amount that exceeds Nvidia’s market value of roughly $4.3 trillion at Friday’s close.

The scale of interest makes it one of the year’s most closely watched Chinese listings, highlighting investor appetite for a domestic GPU developer at a time when US export controls have squeezed Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market. Moore Threads, founded in 2020 by former Nvidia China head James Zhang Jianzhong, develops graphics processors for gaming and AI workloads and aims to accelerate its move toward profitability.

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The company priced its shares at 114.28 yuan, valuing it near $7.5 billion (53.7 billion yuan) and raising 8 billion yuan in fresh capital. Media reports note that retail bids alone reached 35.5 trillion Hong Kong dollars, while the final retail allocation rate stood at 0.036%.

Moore Threads remains in the red, having reported a 271 million yuan net loss on 701.8 million yuan revenue in the first half of 2025. Despite being placed on the US “entity list” in 2022, it has rolled out four GPU architectures in four years, supported by founder expertise and engineers with AMD experience. Early investors include Tencent, ByteDance, GGV Capital and Sequoia China.

The broader surge in interest in Chinese semiconductor and AI firms has been evident across the market. Reports note that companies such as Cambricon Technologies have witnessed sharp stock price spikes, prompting cautionary statements to investors. Moore Threads received fast-track approval for its listing in just 88 days, though the final STAR Market debut date is yet to be announced.