Iluvatar CoreX Seeks $850M Raise on China AI-Chip Rally
TL;DR
- ByteDance is simultaneously negotiating chip supply deals with both Iluvatar CoreX and Baidu, diversifying across China's domestic GPU supplier base.
- The placement upsized from an initial $850M target to $902M, and Iluvatar's stock gained 5.9% on the announcement day.
- Total Hong Kong public market capital raised by Iluvatar CoreX since its January 2026 IPO now approaches $1.3 billion.
A Chinese GPU maker that was mostly selling to government buyers a year ago is now trying to raise about $850 million in a Hong Kong follow-on, six months after its January IPO, The Next Web reports. Iluvatar CoreX's stock has more than tripled since it listed, and this second tap of the public markets would bring the total it has drawn from public markets close to $1.3 billion.
The number that makes the raise interesting is not the $850 million but the $148 million. That is roughly what the company reported in revenue last year (about 1 billion yuan), and close to all of it came from selling GPUs. The public markets are pricing this like a national champion, but the business, on last year's numbers, is closer to a niche supplier that used to sell mostly to the government.
What has changed, according to the reporting, is a deal in talks with ByteDance for at least 50,000 chips this year, most of them for inference rather than training. That is where China's Nvidia-substitute story stops being theoretical. An inference order at that scale from a big consumer AI operator would put Iluvatar's TianGai-100, which the company pitches squarely against Nvidia's A100 and A800, into commercial-scale production workloads for the first time.
The honest caveat is that Iluvatar sits in what the piece describes as a tier-two bracket alongside Biren and Enflame, none of them yet at the scale of China's leading ASIC makers. The reporting also frames the ByteDance number as a talks-stage figure, not a signed contract, and does not break down how much of the 50,000-chip figure is committed versus aspirational. Take the specifics as reported, not settled.
The forward-looking read is straightforward. With Nvidia's best chips walled off by US export controls, Chinese buyers are casting around for anything homegrown that comes close, and Iluvatar is being handed the capital to try. Whether the tier-two label sticks depends on whether the ByteDance talks land as a real purchase order, and on what the next twelve months of revenue actually look like against a valuation that has already run.
What others are reporting
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Reuters Read →
Original exclusive on the ByteDance chip order; notes parallel Baidu talks and frames Iluvatar as ByteDance's potential third domestic GPU vendor after Huawei and Cambricon.
A deal with ByteDance would be a significant commercial milestone for Iluvatar CoreX.
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South China Morning Post Read →
Pairs Iluvatar's placement with Zhipu AI's concurrent HK$31.4B raise, framing both as a wave of recently-listed Chinese AI firms rapidly re-tapping Hong Kong public markets.
Shanghai Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor gained 5.9 per cent to HK$593 as the GPU maker prepares to raise HK$7.1 billion.
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Value The Markets Read →
Adds cumulative capital context ($1.3B raised since Jan IPO) and flags concentration risk from ByteDance dependency; names Huawei HiSilicon and Cambricon as competitive pressures.
The potential secondary offering aiming for $800 million would elevate the total capital raised from public markets to nearly $1.3 billion.
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Investing.com Read →
Connects the $902M placement and ByteDance chip talks as dual catalysts for the stock surge; frames both within China's strategic push for domestic semiconductor self-sufficiency.
Chinese buyers are casting around for homegrown alternatives, and capital has started chasing them.
Originally reported by thenextweb.com
Read the original article →Original headline: Chinese GPU Maker Iluvatar CoreX Raises ~$902M in Hong Kong Share Sale After 257% Post-IPO Rally — In Talks With ByteDance for 50,000-Chip Inference Order This Year