Moore Threads, the 'Chinese Nvidia', surges 500% on stock market debut after eye-popping IPO

Moore Threads Technology Co., a Chinese AI chip manufacturer, also touted as China's answer to Nvidia, made its stock market debut on Friday, December 5, with shares surging as much as 500% in early trades.

The stock surged as much as 502% from its IPO price of 114.28 yuan per share. In case these gains hold, it will be the biggest first day pop for a Chinese IPO over $1 billion since the 2019 reforms, according to Bloomberg data.

Moore Threads had come into the spotlight last week after its IPO received bids worth over $4.5 trillion, which was higher than overall market capitalization of Nvidia, currently the most valued company in the world.

The IPO had received subscriptions of over 4,000 times the total number of shares on offer.

Chinese AI companies have been in the spotlight ever since Nvidia being placed under restrictions for exporting chips to the Chinese market. In fact, Moore Thread's debut comes on the day when US legislators have introduced a Secure and Feasible Exports Act, which, if passed, would ask the Commerce Ministry to halt export licenses for sales of chips to adversaries including China and Russia for at least 30 months.

The regulation would be applicable not just to Nvidia, but to other chipmakers like AMD and Google-parent Alphabet as well.

Known for producing Graphic Processing Units (GPUs), a product which Nvidia currently has near-monopoly status, Moore Threads was founded in 2020, the year of the Covid-19 pandemic, by former Nvidia China head James Zhang Jianzhong, who spent 14 years at Nvidia before branching out on his own.

In its four year history, Moore Threads has already launched four generations of architecture. Despite being part of the US "entity list" since 2022, which makes it difficult to import western technology, the company has managed to scale with the founder's Nvidia background, along with other ex-AMD engineers being on board.

The company remains loss-making, with a net loss of $271 million during the first half of 2025. Tencent, ByteDance, GGV Capital, Sequoia China are some of the early backers of the company.

(With Inputs From Agencies)