Pingtou Ge is about to go public, the first “big result” of Alibaba AI

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Pingtou Ge is about to go public, the first “big result” of Alibaba AI

Letter AI

2026.11.11 09:40

· From Beijing

Full text 2213 words

Text | Letter AI

As expected by the outside world, Alibaba will spin off Pingtou Ge and list it in Hong Kong.

On the evening of November 10, Alibaba announced that it planned to independently list its chip company Pingtouge on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As early as September 11 this year, Pingtou Ge had submitted a confidential listing application.

According to media reports, Pingtou Ge plans to go public in Hong Kong next year and may raise US$2 billion to US$3 billion. However, Alibaba has not disclosed the specific issuance size and listing time.

In March this year, Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming revealed that the annualized revenue of Pingtouge chips has reached tens of billions of yuan.

One step ahead of Brother Pingtou is Kunlun Core, a subsidiary of Baidu. In January this year, Kunlun Core submitted a confidential application form to apply for listing in Hong Kong. In addition to Alibaba and Baidu, Tencent and Byte are also accelerating the development and deployment of self-developed chips.

01

According to Alibaba’s announcement, Pingtou Ge plans to issue H shares on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, including public offerings and institutional placements to the Hong Kong public.

After the spin-off is completed, Pingtou Ge is expected to remain a subsidiary of Alibaba, but the final shareholding size of Alibaba has not yet been determined.

Alibaba explained that the spin-off will help investors separately evaluate the value of the group and Pingtou Ge, and can also attract funds specifically invested in the chip business. After listing, Pingtou Ge can also independently enter the equity and debt capital markets.

In the past few months, Brother Flathead's actions have become obviously intensive.

In August, Alibaba adjusted its financial reporting division and merged Cloud Intelligence Group and Pingtou Ge into "AI Cloud and Computing Power Services". On September 22, Wu Yongming released the new generation Zhenwu V900 at the Yunqi Conference. Alibaba said that the performance of this chip is three times that of the previous generation M890. It is China's self-developed AI chip with the strongest computing power at the time. It plans to mass-produce it in the first quarter of next year.

Looking back now, before the release of V900 at the Yunqi Conference, Pingtou had already submitted a form to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

When Alibaba disclosed the news now, global AI stocks had just experienced a round of violent fluctuations. On November 5, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell by about 12%; by November 9, some domestic computing chip stocks rebounded. Suiyuan Technology once rose by more than 17%, Cambrian rose by more than 6%, and Muxi Shares, Moore Thread, etc. followed suit.

HKEX rules allow confidential filings and require the disclosure of relevant information under certain circumstances. Alibaba did not explain the specific reasons for this disclosure. However, when the news was announced, global chip stocks had just experienced a round of volatility, and some stocks had already rebounded. The rebound in market sentiment may also help investors re-examine the valuation of the chip business.

Kunlun Core, which also applied for listing in Hong Kong, has been submitting its application for more than ten months. In May this year, it completed the filing for listing guidance on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, and simultaneously promoted the listing of Hong Kong stocks and the Science and Technology Innovation Board. In early November, there was news in the market that its Hong Kong stock IPO might be postponed. Baidu later denied it, saying that the company was still in the confidential declaration stage.

For Kunlun Core, which has been delivering watches for more than ten months, the arrival of Flathead Brother may also become a reference for its pricing. The two companies have similar businesses and are backed by major Internet companies. They have successively applied for listing, which is expected to attract more investors' attention.

As more information is subsequently disclosed, investors can also compare the products, customers and income of both parties together, providing a reference for judging valuation.

02

The progress of core manufacturing by major manufacturers is still accelerating. Google’s third quarter financial report this year shows that TPU system sales have become one of the reasons for Google Cloud’s revenue growth. On November 9, Google added two more systems to the eighth-generation TPU. So far, this generation has four systems, each targeting different needs such as training and reasoning.

The head of Google's AI infrastructure revealed that TPU currently has nearly 100 external customers. In October last year, Anthropic announced the expansion of its cooperation with Google Cloud, planning to use up to 1 million TPUs. The entire expansion plan is worth tens of billions of dollars.

Chips from major domestic manufacturers are also iterating, and Pingtou Ge’s commercialization is progressing rapidly.

Pingtou Ge was founded in 2018 and initially mainly served Alibaba’s internal services. Now, it has launched Zhenwu AI chips, Etian server CPUs, ICN interconnect chips, Panmai smart network cards and Zhenyue storage controllers. It is one of the few domestic manufacturers that simultaneously deploys computing power, storage and network core chips.

As of April this year, the cumulative shipments of Zhenwu series AI chips have exceeded 560,000 pieces. Pingtouge PPU is also one of the domestic GPU chips with the highest shipment volume in 2025. By early August, Zhenwu Chip had more than 650 customers. After segment adjustments in August, "AI cloud and computing power services" including Pingtou Ge's quarterly revenue was 48.437 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45%. Alibaba did not disclose Ping Tou Ge’s income separately.

The layout of Tencent and Byte is also accelerating, but at this stage they are mainly promoting chip research and development and product deployment, and have not yet disclosed plans to spin off the chip business and go public.

Tencent has previously announced three self-developed chip product lines: Zixiao for AI reasoning, Canghai for video transcoding, and Xuanling for smart network cards. Now, Tencent Cloud has provided cloud instances equipped with Zixiao C200.

In July this year, Tencent released Zixiao 2.0. The training performance is 4 times higher than that of the previous generation. It is mainly used for its own business. It plans to expand the scale of self-developed chip deployment to 100,000 card level by the end of the year.

Canghai has already been used in the video business. According to Tencent Cloud's disclosure in May this year, more than 100,000 pieces of Canghai V1 have been deployed in scenarios such as Tencent Cloud, its own live broadcasts and cloud games; the new generation of Canghai V2 has been lit and has entered the mass production cycle.

Bytes reveal relatively little on the chip. While it is doing its own research, it is also looking for external cooperation.

Reports in May this year stated that Byte was developing server CPUs and was considering both Arm and RISC-V architecture routes. In October, another media report stated that Byte and MediaTek were in in-depth discussions on the supply of customized chips for data centers. There is no public information on whether the two parties have finally reached a deal. If the cooperation is reached, Byte may become MediaTek's second largest ASIC customer after Google.

The investment in computing power by major manufacturers has also attracted more attention to supporting companies such as servers and data centers. In addition to Pingtou Ge, Super Fusion, which has recently been engaged in server and computing infrastructure, is also preparing to go public.

The prospectus shows that in the first half of this year, Super Fusion’s revenue was 37.286 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.78%; of which, the revenue directly or indirectly from Internet customers reached 25.061 billion yuan, accounting for 67.27% of the total revenue. As of the end of July, the company had orders on hand of 30.113 billion yuan.

According to IDC data quoted in the prospectus, super fusion will rank second in China's server market in 2025. On November 12, its GEM IPO application will be reviewed by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange Listing Committee, and it plans to raise 8 billion yuan.

China's integrated circuit exports are also growing. Customs data shows that China's integrated circuit exports in October were approximately US$39.594 billion, a year-on-year increase of 137.1%.

From chips to servers, major manufacturers and computing power companies are striving for greater results.

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