The Cambricon 1H26 net profit surge Moore Threads Hong Kong IPO story is bigger than two earnings updates. It points to a sharp change in China’s AI hardware market, where domestic GPU and ASIC suppliers are finding real commercial traction as buyers look beyond Nvidia.
Cambricon Technologies announced first-half revenue of RMB 5.996 billion and net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 2.311 billion. Meanwhile, Moore Wire & Cable, preparing for a potential Hong Kong listing, significantly narrowed its losses. These figures are indeed striking, but there are also some points that need attention.
Cambricon’s 1H26 net-profit surge shows where demand is landing
Cambricon reports 123 percent net profit surge to 2.311 billion yuan in 1H26, while its revenue rose 108.13% year over year to RMB 5.996 billion. The company’s adjusted net profit, excluding non-recurring items, reached RMB 2.166 billion, up 137.30%.
The Cambricon 1H26 revenue 5.996 billion yuan figure reveals something unusually concentrated: cloud products generated RMB 5.994 billion, or 99.98% of sales. That level of concentration can be powerful when cloud demand is rising. It can also leave the company exposed if a large customer slows orders.
So, Why did Cambricon's net profit surge in 1H26? Stronger AI infrastructure spending, deeper relationships with internet and financial-sector customers, and wider use of local accelerators appear to be the main reasons.
The company is also strengthening software compatibility. Cambricon cloud products DeepSeek Qwen support is expanding alongside compatibility for GLM, Kimi, MiniMax, and other Chinese open-source models. Hardware matters, obviously. But developers tend to follow the ecosystem that makes deployment less painful.
For more context on China's domestic AI chip race, large orders and local software support are becoming just as influential as headline chip specifications.
ByteDance orders, Nvidia restrictions, and one obvious risk
Reports identify ByteDance as Cambricon’s largest customer for AI chips, with a ByteDance 200,000 chip order Cambricon reportedly in place. That kind of commitment helps explain why revenue has accelerated so quickly.
It also creates dependence.
Cambricon’s second-quarter net profit still rose to RMB 1.298 billion, up from RMB 1.013 billion in the first quarter. Yet year-on-year growth slowed from 185.04% in Q1 to 90.11% in Q2. The numbers remain strong, but the pace is no longer accelerating at the same rate.
Management has also been building inventory as component prices rise. Operating cash flow fell 65.83% year over year to RMB 311 million in Q2, largely because of higher procurement and tax payments. That’s not necessarily a red flag, but it’s worth watching. Earnings can look brilliant while cash conversion gets messier.
US restrictions on Nvidia drive massive demand for Cambricon and domestic GPUs, particularly when Chinese buyers need supply certainty. You can see the broader movement among Chinese AI suppliers, as businesses reassess whether imported hardware remains their safest long-term option.
Moore Threads Hong Kong IPO listing plan gains momentum
The Moore Threads Hong Kong IPO listing plan follows a much stronger first half. The GPU designer reported RMB 1.736 billion in revenue, up 147.42% year over year and already above its full-year 2025 revenue.
How much revenue did Moore Threads generate in 1H26? RMB 1.736 billion.
Gross profit climbed 103.78% to RMB 989 million. More encouragingly, Moore Threads narrows net loss to 11.56 million yuan ahead of Hong Kong listing, a 95.73% improvement from the previous year. It’s close to break-even, though close isn’t the same as profitable.
Is Moore Threads planning a Hong Kong stock listing? Yes. The company has indicated that it intends to issue H-shares and seek a Hong Kong listing after its 2025 STAR Market debut, which could create a dual mainland China and Hong Kong listing structure.
That fundraising route fits the wider local chipmaker IPO wave. Domestic chip companies need patient capital because design wins are only the opening act. Scaling supply, software stacks, customer support, and next-generation products takes years.
China domestic AI GPU market share 2026 could look very different
China’s AI chip market shifts to domestic GPUs and ASICs in 2026 as policy, supply concerns, and product maturity converge. The emerging model is not likely to be one domestic winner replacing every foreign chip. Instead, buyers may use domestic GPUs for flexible workloads and proprietary ASICs for specific inference or training tasks.
Domestic solutions are projected to capture roughly 90% of China’s high-end AI chip market in 2026. That estimate is ambitious, and execution will determine whether it holds. Still, the direction is clear enough: China domestic GPU proprietary ASIC adoption is moving from policy aspiration into purchasing decisions.
This trend connects with China's AI supercluster push, where local compute capacity needs chips, interconnects, cooling, and dependable software working together. A domestic supercomputing platform can’t rely on silicon alone.
Hygon adds another strong earnings signal
Hygon expects up to 70 percent YoY revenue growth in 1H26 earnings preview, forecasting revenue of RMB 8.5 billion to RMB 9.3 billion. Its projected net profit ranges from RMB 1.7 billion to RMB 1.83 billion.
What is Hygon's net profit forecast for 1H26? RMB 1.7 billion to RMB 1.83 billion, with adjusted profit potentially reaching RMB 2.17 billion to RMB 2.3 billion.
The Hygon 1H26 revenue forecast 8.5 billion yuan at the low end shows that Cambricon’s gains are not happening in isolation. The market is broadening. AI chip market expansion and China's chip-output growth are giving local designers a larger base of demand and manufacturing confidence.
What investors and buyers should watch next
The Cambricon 1H26 net profit surge Moore Threads Hong Kong IPO narrative has real momentum, but revenue quality matters as much as growth rate. Watch customer concentration, inventory levels, operating cash flow, gross margins, software adoption, and the ability to fulfill large orders.
Cambricon increased R&D spending to RMB 702 million in 1H26, up 29.63%, and filed 55 new patent applications. That investment is necessary because the market won’t stand still. Buyers will compare performance, availability, energy use, and model support with far more scrutiny as local choices multiply.
Market sentiment may help, too. AI stock market resilience and the Hong Kong tech stock rally could make capital raising easier for firms that can show actual sales rather than just promising roadmaps.
China’s domestic AI chip story is becoming commercial
The Cambricon 1H26 net profit surge Moore Threads Hong Kong IPO developments show a market moving beyond prototypes and policy announcements. Cambricon has delivered profitability and scale. Moore Threads has made rapid progress toward break-even. Hygon’s forecast suggests demand is spreading across the domestic ecosystem.
There are still hard questions around customer concentration, costs, and long-term competitiveness. But if you’re tracking China's trillion-yuan chip market, these earnings reports are the kind of evidence that deserves attention.
GlobalByte.News Perspective
The rapid development of artificial intelligence chip research and development in China is now not only of strategic and commercial significance.
For many years, China's vigorous development of artificial intelligence chips domestically has been viewed primarily from a geopolitical perspective.
U.S. export restrictions created pressure to develop alternatives to Nvidia, while Beijing pushed companies and institutions toward domestic computing infrastructure. That made China's AI-chip industry strategically important, but strategic importance alone doesn't guarantee a successful semiconductor business.
The latest numbers from Cambricon, Moore Threads and Hygon suggest something more interesting is happening: the market is beginning to show signs of commercial traction.
Cambricon's RMB 5.996 billion first-half revenue and RMB 2.311 billion net profit are difficult to dismiss as simply policy-driven demand. Moore Threads, meanwhile, has taken a major step toward profitability while preparing for a potential Hong Kong listing, but this is where the headline numbers need some context.
Cambricon's almost complete dependence on cloud products and its reported relationship with ByteDance demonstrate how quickly demand can scale, but also how concentrated that demand can become. Its sharp decline in operating cash flow is another reminder that rapid revenue growth can require equally rapid spending on inventory and components.
That distinction will become increasingly important as China's domestic chip market matures.
The next stage of competition won't simply be about replacing Nvidia hardware. Chinese chipmakers will need to prove that their products can deliver reliable performance, competitive power efficiency, mature software support and consistent supply at scale, and software may ultimately become one of the most important battlegrounds.
Cambricon's expanding support for DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM and other Chinese models is significant because customers don't buy accelerators in isolation. They buy an ecosystem. If developers can move workloads onto domestic hardware without rewriting large portions of their software stack, the argument for switching becomes considerably stronger.
Moore Threads' progress tells another part of the story. Narrowing its loss to just RMB 11.56 million while growing revenue by more than 147% puts the company in a very different position from an early-stage chip startup burning cash without meaningful commercial demand. A potential Hong Kong listing could provide additional capital to accelerate that transition, but we wouldn't call victory yet.
China's domestic AI chip industry still faces enormous challenges. Advanced manufacturing remains fraught with difficulties, the software ecosystem urgently needs improvement, and the competitive landscape is becoming increasingly fierce. At the same time, the industry's current growth is being helped by an unusually favorable combination of government support, supply-chain localization and restrictions on Nvidia's access to the Chinese market, which makes the sustainability of today's growth rates the real test.
Our view
The most important development is not that Cambricon's profit rose 123% or that Moore Threads is considering another listing.
It's that China's AI-chip industry is moving from "Can China build its own AI chips?" to "Can Chinese AI chips become a commercially sustainable ecosystem?"
The latest earnings suggest the answer may increasingly be yes.
But the next 12–24 months will reveal whether this is the beginning of a durable domestic semiconductor ecosystem or simply a demand spike created by geopolitical pressure.
For GlobalByte.News, the signal we're watching is simple: revenue growth is encouraging, but recurring customers, cash generation, software adoption and sustained profitability will determine whether China's domestic AI-chip boom becomes a long-term competitive force.