This Chinese AI chip start-up plans to rival NVIDIA
What's the story
Shanghai-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip start-up, MetaX, is making waves in the tech industry. The company has received approval from Shanghai's exchange to list on the city's NASDAQ-style Star Market. This comes as a major milestone for China's growing investment in AI and its potential to rival US chip giant NVIDIA. Founded in 2020 by former Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) executives Chen Weiliang, Peng Li, and Yang Jian, MetaX has R&D centers across several Chinese cities including Beijing and Nanjing.
Regulatory approval
Regulatory approval and MetaX's chip offerings
Even though MetaX has cleared a major regulatory hurdle by passing the exchange's hearing, it still needs final approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission to go ahead with its listing. As a fabless chip designer, MetaX designs microchips but doesn't manufacture them. The firm makes N-series GPUs for AI inference, C-series chips for general computing, and G-series processors for graphics rendering.
Technological advancements
MXMACA computing platform and domestically produced chips
MetaX has also developed its own computing platform, the MXMACA, which is compatible with mainstream GPU ecosystems like NVIDIA's CUDA. The firm's latest general-purpose processor, the MetaX C600, was launched in July. It features HBM3e high-bandwidth memory, and supports FP8 precision for faster AI model training with lower power consumption. The chip comes with 144GB of memory and is "fully domestically produced," with mass production planned by year-end.
Financial backing
Funding and valuation of MetaX
MetaX has raised over CNY 10 billion ($1.4 billion) in nine funding rounds, with a valuation of CNY 21 billion in its latest round. Its investors include top venture capital firms like HongShan Capital Group (formerly Sequoia China), Matrix Partners China, CTC Capital, ZhenFund, and Lightspeed China Partners. State-linked investors such as the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Fund and the Pudong District Fund are also among its backers.