Chinese chipmaker profits surge 2,500% on explosive AI computing demand

Major Chinese microchip manufacturers saw their profits surge by 2,579.5% in the first half of 2026, driven by unprecedented demand for artificial intelligence and computing capacity.

Data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics, cited by the South China Morning Post (SCMP), underscored the industry’s sharp upward trajectory.

Yu Weining, senior statistician at China’s National Bureau of Statistics, explained that this surge is directly connected to the accelerating integration of artificial intelligence across various sectors.

Yu noted that this process has increased the need for computing capacity. The demand for computational processes also lifted profits across the entire electronics industry by 97% year-on-year.

Profits of major Chinese industrial enterprises with an annual revenue exceeding 20 million yuan ($2.9 million) rose 18.7% in the first six months of the year, reaching 4 trillion yuan.

In the first half of 2025, before the global data center construction process had begun, industrial profits had dropped by 1.8% to 3.4 trillion yuan, while profit growth in the electronics sector remained at 3.5%.

The SCMP reported that the global AI boom has generated explosive demand for high-performance computing systems and memory chips, causing a structural pivot in China’s industrial landscape.

Data showed that integrated circuit production in the first half of the year grew by 23% year-on-year to reach approximately 280 billion units.

This figure means that the country produced an average of more than 1.5 billion chips per day.

The profit growth is also corroborated by forecasts from China’s leading chipmakers. Shenzhen Longsys Electronics, one of the largest memory module manufacturers, expects its profits to increase by more than 600-fold in the first half of the year.

Flash memory maker GigaDevice projects that its net profit will surge by approximately 1,099% year-on-year due to supply shortages and rising product prices.

Chinese companies in the AI chip segment are also demonstrating strong profit growth, albeit at a more moderate pace compared to the memory market.

Hygon Information Technology, which develops central processing units and computing units for artificial intelligence, projects that its profits will rise by up to 52.3%.

CXMT hits record high on Shanghai Stock Exchange

Shares of Chinese chipmaker CXMT gained more than 500% on their first day of trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange on July 27, jumping from 8.66 yuan to 55 yuan.

As a result of this sharp surge in its shares, CXMT’s market valuation reached 3.65 trillion yuan ($539 billion), making the company China’s most valuable publicly traded firm.

At the peak of the rally—even though quoted prices underwent a slight correction toward the close of the trading day—CXMT surpassed Tencent, which was trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with a market capitalization of $514 billion.