A common view of the Baidu emblem is seen on the Shanghai New Expo Heart throughout the World Synthetic Intelligence Convention 2025 in Shanghai, China, on July 28, 2025.
Ying Tang | Nurphoto | Getty Photographs
Chinese language tech large Baidu plans to spin off its synthetic intelligence chip subsidiary, Kunlunxin, and listing it in Hong Kong, as extra home chipmakers search funds amid Beijing’s push for semiconductor self-sufficiency.
The corporate mentioned in an announcement Friday that it had confidentially filed an inventory software on the Hong Kong Inventory Alternate, although particulars of the providing, together with measurement and construction, stay undecided.
The transfer would nonetheless require regulatory approvals, together with from China’s securities watchdog. Baidu emphasised there isn’t any assure the spin-off will proceed. The corporate reportedly owns about 59% of Kunlunxin.
Baidu, a significant participant in China’s rising AI area, is each a purchaser of specialised AI chips for information facilities and cloud computing, in addition to a designer of them via Kunlunxin.
The agency mentioned that the spin-off would align with its technique to focus on Kunlunxin’s standalone potential, appeal to sector-specific traders, and increase financing choices. Kunlunxin would stay a Baidu subsidiary, it added.
The transfer comes towards a backdrop of intensifying U.S.-China tech tensions. Each Washington and Beijing have imposed numerous restrictions on Chinese language AI firms’ entry to modern AI chips from California-based Nvidia.
In the meantime, Beijing has more and more inspired home chip purchases and mobilized billions in public funds in the direction of growth.
In latest months, a number of Chinese language chipmakers have introduced plans to listing, together with Moore Threads and Biren Expertise.
A Rising Enterprise Focus
Based in 2012, Kunlunxin is central to Baidu’s ambition to grow to be a “full stack” AI firm, spanning {hardware}, servers and information facilities, in addition to AI fashions and functions.
Whereas Baidu nonetheless depends closely on Nvidia’s chips for AI computing energy, Kunlunxin has enabled the corporate to more and more use a mixture of its self-developed chips in information facilities working its Ernie AI fashions.
Kunlunxin has additionally shifted to function as a separate entity, increasing its gross sales to third-party prospects outdoors Baidu.
“Available in the market, Kunlunxin is seen as some of the sensible and broadly used AI chips in China,” Brady Wang, affiliate director at Counterpoint Analysis, advised CNBC.
He added that one of many chipmaker’s fundamental strengths is in software program. “As a substitute of forcing customers to undertake a closed system, Kunlunxin works nicely with frequent AI frameworks and makes it simpler to maneuver workloads from [Nvidia].”
Reuters beforehand reported that Kunlunxin’s income is projected to exceed 3.5 billion yuan ($500 million) final 12 months, reaching break-even. Exterior gross sales have been anticipated to account for greater than half of its income in 2025, the report added.
In one other signal of power final 12 months, Kunlunxin gained orders value over 1 billion yuan from suppliers to China Cellular, one of many nation’s largest cell carriers.
China Cellular additionally participated within the entity’s newest funding, which had raised over 2 billion yuan and valued the unit at about 21 billion yuan, based on Reuters.
In its announcement, Baidu mentioned its plans to spin off and listing Kunlunxin would higher tie administration incentives with efficiency and elevate the unit’s market presence.
Late final 12 months, JPMorgan analysts forecast that Kunlunxin’s chip gross sales would enhance sixfold to eight billion Chinese language yuan in 2026.
Nonetheless, whereas Kunlunxin might assist scale back China’s reliance on chips from Nvidia, it can not totally change them, Counterpoint’s Wang mentioned, citing Beijing’s ongoing constraints in superior chip manufacturing.
“[Kunlunxin’s chips] work finest for inference and different workloads which are simpler to maneuver, particularly for presidency, telecom, and state-owned cloud customers, the place steady provide and decrease value matter greater than high efficiency,” he mentioned.
“Due to this, Beijing is just not counting on a single firm. As a substitute, Kunlunxin works along with Huawei Ascend, Cambricon, Alibaba, and others to construct a home AI computing ecosystem.”
