Chinese AI and Tech Companies Raise Over $27 Billion in Hong Kong Amid U.S. Chip Restrictions

Chinese technology companies across artificial intelligence, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing and autonomous driving raised approximately $27.34 billion through Hong Kong listings and share sales so far in 2026, amid U.S. chip restrictions and a decline in private venture capital. Zhongji Innolight separately planned to raise at least $8 billion through a Hong Kong listing, while DeepSeek was reportedly nearing a proposed $7.4 billion private funding round backed by Tencent and CATL that had not been publicly confirmed. Chinese AI developers are also relying on state-backed funds, municipal computing vouchers, domestic technology companies and software optimization as they seek additional financing and greater computing capacity.

Chinese AI fundraising surge

• ▪Zhipu AI launched a HK$31.41 billion share sale in Hong Kong to support its large language model development.
• ▪DeepSeek is reportedly preparing for a public listing, but the listed sources differ on the planned venue and valuation.
• ▪Zhongji Innolight planned a Hong Kong listing to raise at least $8 billion, pricing shares up to HK$1,010 each.
• ▪Chinese technology companies, including artificial intelligence and semiconductor firms, collectively raised approximately $27.34 billion in Hong Kong through listings and share sales so far in 2026.

U.S. chip export restrictions

• ▪The United States government expanded export controls to block Chinese entities from purchasing advanced graphics processing units, including Nvidia H100, H800, and Blackwell architectures.
• ▪Private venture capital investments in Chinese technology startups fell from a peak of $24.9 billion in 2021 to $9.3 billion due to geopolitical tensions and Western regulatory restrictions.

State-backed funding mechanisms

• ▪Chinese local governments introduced computing power vouchers to subsidize up to 50 percent of artificial intelligence startups' server rental expenses at state-owned supercomputing centers.
• ▪Chinese municipal governments in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou established state-backed technology investment funds to support local artificial intelligence developers.

Software optimization strategies

• ▪DeepSeek trained its flagship Mixture-of-Experts model for a total cost of $5.6 million by routing user prompts only to relevant sub-networks.
• ▪Moonshot launched its Kimi K3 open-weight model featuring 2.8 trillion parameters, developed to run on restricted hardware.

Sovereign technology ecosystem development

• ▪Beijing formally launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation with participation from 29 nations to promote open-source artificial intelligence.
• ▪Alibaba Group, Tencent Holdings, Xiaomi, and ZTE are investing in local startups like Zhipu and MiniMax to build an independent domestic technology stack.

Competing regulatory frameworks

• ▪The Trump administration implemented domestic safety standards and temporary export and cloud-access restrictions on advanced models like Anthropic Fable 5 and OpenAI GPT-5.6.
• ▪TechGolly reported that China's Ministry of Commerce was consulting technology companies about possible export controls that could restrict foreign access to Chinese open-weight model weights and training datasets.