Alibaba and Tencent-Backed Chinese AI Firms Race for Hong Kong IPOs by January 2026
Two Chinese artificial intelligence companies, each backed by tech giants Alibaba and Tencent, are sprinting toward Hong Kong stock market debuts. Their target? A January 2026 completion date.
The AI Gold Rush Hits the Exchange
The race underscores the fierce competition in China's AI sector, where securing capital and market validation has become a high-stakes game. A Hong Kong listing offers a prestigious platform and access to deep pools of international capital—fuel for the next phase of growth.
Why the Deadline Matters
Timing is everything. A successful IPO by early 2026 would position these firms ahead of potential regulatory shifts and market cycles. It’s a move to lock in valuations while investor appetite for AI narratives remains strong, a classic case of striking while the iron is hot—or at least while the hype is still believable.
The Big-Tech Backing
Having Alibaba and Tencent in their corners isn't just about money; it's about strategic ecosystems, cloud resources, and a stamp of credibility. This heavyweight support signals these aren't just science projects—they're commercial ventures with powerful allies.
A Calculated Bet on the Future
This IPO push is a bold bet that the market will still be paying for AI promises two years from now. It’s a marathon of paperwork and roadshows, all for a moment where financial engineering meets artificial intelligence. After all, nothing says 'trust our technology' like a perfectly timed stock sale.
MiniMax and Zhipu announce IPOs
Two Chinese artificial intelligence startups, MiniMax and Zhipu, are preparing to go public. Both companies are backed by Alibaba and Tencent, and aim to complete their Hong Kong initial public offerings in the coming weeks.
MiniMax was established in 2021 by former employees of SenseTime, while Zhipu emerged from Tsinghua University in 2019. MiniMax has raised around $850 million in venture capital and is valued at more than $2.5 billion.
In March 2024, Alibaba led a $600 million funding round for the company. Zhipu has also secured significant backing, including $140 million from Shanghai state funds.
The details of both offerings are still under discussion and may change. The companies also need approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) after getting their application reviewed and approved by the stock exchange.
The CSRC focuses on whether the applying companies comply with national industrial policies and are suitable for listing.
MiniMax plans for its IPO to take place as soon as January, and the listing could raise hundreds of millions of dollars, according to people familiar with the matter. Zhipu intends to list around the same time. The company previously planned to list on mainland China’s stock exchanges but switched to Hong Kong later.
The switch could be due to Hong Kong’s fast-growing stock market, which is expected to become the world’s largest listing destination this year, surpassing Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange.
The city raised $35 billion through IPOs this year, and that number is expected to reach $300 billion in 2026, according to Li Zhenguo, the UBS Vice Chairman of Global Investment Banking. He also expects that 150 to 200 companies will list in Hong Kong in 2026.
What makes these AI companies competitive with U.S. rivals?
MiniMax and Zhipu have developed large language models that compete with OpenAI and other American AI companies.
For instance, MiniMax’s flagship products include the MiniMax-Text-01 model, which the company claims performs better than Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash in several aspects. The model has an extremely large context window of 4 million tokens, allowing it to analyze around 3 million words in one go.
The company also operates Talkie, an AI-powered role-playing platform, and Hailuo AI, which provides text-to-video generation capabilities. Talkie ranked fifth among the most-downloaded free entertainment apps in the U.S. in June 2024 and has more than half of its 11 million monthly active users based in America.
Zhipu, on the other hand, claims its GLM4 model surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-4. The company’s GLM-130B model is recognized as Asia’s sole representative in Stanford University’s 2022 benchmark of major global LLMs.
DeepSeek’s emergence in January 2025 helped renew enthusiasm for Chinese technology stocks and made the subsequent rebound in share sales possible.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange launched a Technology Enterprises Channel in May 2025 to facilitate IPO approvals for specialist technology and biotech companies. Several mainland companies already listed on U.S. exchanges have reportedly sought secondary listings in Hong Kong in order to access Asia-based capital and reduce exposure to U.S. regulatory risks.
More than 200 companies have submitted listing applications in Hong Kong, including traditional manufacturing companies, AI companies, and telecommunications companies.
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