AI tycoon Chen Tianshi amasses $10 billion fortune as shares soar 500%

Chen Tianshi, co-founder of Chinese chip company Cambricon Technologies, saw his net worth rise to $10 billion as the Shanghai-listed company’s shares surged 500% in 2024 amid China’s push for technological self-reliance. Still, analysts question whether his company’s stock will remain so high.

Cambricon Technologies, where the 40-year-old is both chairman and CEO, was the second most valuable company by market capitalization on China’s Nasdaq-like ChiNext board as of Jan. 15, according to the latest data available on the Shanghai Stock Exchange . when it reached 291 billion yuan ($40 billion). But after rising 7.3% in the first two weeks of 2025, its shares fell as much as 17% on Thursday morning before paring some of the losses to finish 11.5% lower since midday.

The slide came after Nvidia’s billionaire co-founder Jensen Huang reportedly arrived in China’s tech hub Shenzhen for a visit. Shen Meng, a Beijing-based managing director at boutique investment bank Chanson & Co., says by WeChat that his friendly reception is perceived to help Nvidia’s business in China at the expense of local rivals including Cambricon Technologies.

Huang, now 10 in the world^th The world’s richest man, with a net worth of $119 billion, is contesting recent chip export controls imposed by the U.S. Nvidia has said the restrictions, which allow sales to a select group of U.S. allies, but make it harder for countries including China and China and Russia to buy AI-related chips, threatens to undermine American leadership and hurt economic growth around the world. In fiscal 2024, the US tech giant generated 16.9% of its $61 billion in sales from mainland China and Hong Kong, according to its annual report. Its graphics processing units (GPUs), a type of AI-related chip, are being snapped up by Chinese Internet giants including Alibaba and ByteDance for AI development, He Sui, a Shanghai-based research director at the firm, said by phone research Omdia.

Some investors believe that Cambricon Technologies could one day become China’s Nvidia. The market shares held by domestic companies in China’s artificial intelligence chip market will continue to grow as Beijing encourages the use of local technologies amid rising tensions with the US, according to He.

Cambricon Technologies is one of the few local companies where the public can invest. Chinese tech giant Huawei, which is also developing chips, is privately held. Both companies are on the so-called US government entity list, which restricts them from buying US technology due to national security concerns.

Cambricon Technologies, which has not reported an annual profit since its initial public offering in 2020, in part due to high research spending, still has a price-to-sales ratio of more than 340 times after today’s decline. Nvidia, whose Nasdaq-listed shares rose 150% last year, has a price-to-sales ratio of 30 times.

“Obviously, it’s a big bubble,” says Dickie Wong, Hong Kong-based executive director of research at Kingston Securities, via text message. “Investors are very optimistic about its AI businesses. His assessment seems speculative and risky.”

Cambricon Technologies did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Chen, a child prodigy who was accepted into the Hefei, Anhui-based University of Science and Technology at age 16 as part of a special program for gifted children, took a research job at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in related to the state. in 2010 after receiving his Ph.D. in computer science from the same university, according to local media reports.

He worked at the research institute for nearly a decade and started Cambricon Technologies in 2016 while still there. He left in 2019 to focus on Cambricon Technologies. The research institute, an early investor in the company, holds a 16% stake, according to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The company is lagging “far” behind Nvidia, which was founded in 1993, in technology capabilities, Sun Wei, a Beijing-based senior analyst at research firm Counterpoint Research, said by phone.

But it says its products could be more adaptable, meaning they could be tailored for specific uses in China. In its 2023 annual report, Cambricon Technologies said Chinese AI startups Baichuan AI and HiDream.ai used its custom semiconductors to develop AI models. It also optimized its chips for use in computer vision and language processing for undisclosed local Internet companies, according to the annual report.

Cambricon Technologies expects 2024 sales to grow as much as 69.2% year-on-year to 1.2 billion yuan, according to preliminary results reported to the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company says losses will shrink as much as 53.3% to 396 million yuan from a year ago.

But whether it can stand out among domestic competitors is another question. Paul Triolo, a Washington, DC-based partner at consulting firm DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, says it’s actually Huawei, not Cambricon Technologies, that has the best chance of catching up with Nvidia.

“Huawei’s Ascend 910X series of GPUs is getting more capable and could soon match the performance of Nvidia A100 GPUs,” he says via email. “It is possible that some of the top Chinese GPU design firms will merge with or be acquired by Huawei, pushing for better GPU designs.”