From Bloomberg, December 16:
In the span of just a few days, another billionaire has emerged from a Chinese chipmaker, following a familiar playbook: learn from an industry giant, strike out alone and push through fraught US-China geopolitics.
Five years ago, Chen Weiliang walked away from a 14-year career and top executive role at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. to focus on his own chip startup.
On Wednesday, that startup — MetaX Integrated Circuits Shanghai Co. — listed in Shanghai with a valuation of $5.9 billion. After the stock surged as much as 755% on its first day of trading and settled up 693% at market close, Chen’s 55-million-share stake jumped in value to $6.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
MetaX declined to comment.
Read more: China Chipmaker MetaX Debuts After Wildly Oversubscribed IPO
The 49-year-old’s ascent to billionaire status follows the arc of Moore Threads Technology Co. founder Zhang Jianzhong — a former Nvidia Corp. executive — whose net worth climbed to $4.3 billion after his company’s IPO earlier this month.
Both founders reflect the rise of a new billionaire class in China, fueled by Beijing’s drive to create a self-sufficient chip supply chain. Yet, their companies remain exposed to geopolitical pressures, heavy cash burn, intense domestic competition and hardware dependencies that could quickly test those gains.
“In the tech war between China and the US, companies in Beijing’s priority sectors are receiving support far beyond normal levels,” said Shen Meng, director at Beijing-based investment bank Chanson & Co. “Although R&D is manageable for founders with US industry experience, Chinese firms still lag significantly behind global leaders in system-level performance, ecosystems, and production.”
Read more: Ex-Nvidia Manager Is Billionaire After Blockbuster China IPO
‘AMD Gang’
A key driver of MetaX’s rapid ascent has been its aggressive recruitment of top-tier engineering talent, allowing Chen to bypass the typical startup learning curve. Among his first hires were chief technology officers Peng Li — one of AMD’s first female Chinese scientists — and Yang Jian.Like Moore Threads, MetaX’s IPO has also made a lot of other people associated with the firm wealthy. Peng and Yang each saw their fortunes surge above $400 million at market close....
....MUCH MORE
Recently:
