Welcome back to China Insights Weekly. Here are this week's highlights:
- Shares in Shanghai hit a ten-year high, growth is driven by insurance and technology
- China dominates humanoid robots, domestic producers provide most of the world's supply
- Clonal-hybrid rice breaks yield limits, the properties of the seeds now replicate themselves
- Supercritical CO₂ energy enters commercial phase, the waste heat is converted into electricity for the grid
Main News
Zhipu AI soars in Hong Kong IPO, becoming the world's first LLM to list, MiniMax follows a day later
Zhipu AI, a Chinese startup and the first major large-scale language model (LLM) firm to list on the stock market, saw its shares rise 12.4 % on the first day of trading in Hong Kong, closing at HK$130.60 (US$16.76) per share. This brought the company's market capitalisation to HK$57.5 billion. The initial public offering (IPO) was significantly oversubscribed, with Hong Kong investors oversubscribing by 1,159.5 times and international investors by 15.3 times. The company raised more than HKD 4.3 billion (USD 552 million). Zhipu AI plans to invest 70 % of the net proceeds from the IPO in research and development of universal AI models and 10 % in optimizing its Model-as-a-Service platform.
A day later, on January 9, she recorded a strong MiniMax, backed by Chinese game developer MiHoYo, also debuts on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Shares rose by more than 70 % and briefly pushed the firm's market capitalization above HK$90 billion (US$11.5 billion). The company, founded by former SenseTime vice president Yan Junjie, priced the IPO at HK$165 per share and raised gross proceeds of HK$5.54 billion (US$710 million). The offering was heavily oversubscribed: the public portion in Hong Kong was 1,837 times and the international placement was covered 37 times. The firm focuses on core AI models and applications, and plans to use the IPO proceeds to improve large-scale language models and develop AI-native products.
With MiniMax's IPO, the company completed its initial public offering within a month five artificial intelligence companies from Shanghai, including Biren Technology, MetaX, Insilico Medicine and Iluvatar CoreX, covering areas from GPUs to AI-powered drug discovery.
Hesai Group, the world's largest manufacturer of lidar sensors for vehicles, has partnered with Nvidia to supply lidar sensors for Nvidia's Drive Hyperion platform for Level 4 (L4) autonomous driving. Ready for mass production, Hesai's sensors will support a platform including a system-on-chip and safety-certified operating system. This collaboration is expected to accelerate Hesai's global expansion. The company plans to double production capacity to 4 million units per year by 2026 to meet demand. Both the partnership and the production expansion come at a time when China has approved mass production of L3 vehicles and up to 300,000 driverless taxis with L4 level are expected in China's largest cities by 2030.
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Chongqing led China's auto production from January to November with nearly 2.5 million vehicles produced, up 12 % year-on-year. Hefei ranked first in new energy vehicle (NEV) production with 1.2 million units, up 11 % year-on-year. Anhui province's total automobile production reached 3.3 million vehicles, of which 1.6 million were NEVs. Hefei's industrial strategy has attracted major players such as JAC Motors, Nio, Volkswagen Anhui, BYD and Changan Auto, and created a dense NEV manufacturing cluster. Other cities are also experiencing growth. Liuzhou in Guangxi province posted a 38% increase in vehicle production in the first nine months of the year, driven mainly by micro EVs.
In 2025, the global automotive market has seen significant shifts, with Xiaomi and BYD ranking third and fourth in terms of market value. Tesla remained the largest automaker by market capitalization, followed by Toyota. Porsche dropped out of the top ten, while BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen improved. Xiaomi delivered more than 410,000 vehicles and BYD sold 4.602 million new-energy vehicles in 2025. Of the world's top 50 automakers by market capitalization, 19 were Chinese, including Seres Group at No. 18, Great Wall Motor at No. 20, SAIC Motor at No. 21, Geely Automobile at No. 22 and Chery Automobile at No. 24.
Shanghai stock market hits 10-year high, growth driven by insurance companies
The Shanghai Composite Index closed at 4083.67 points on 6 January 2026, the highest level since July 2015. The growth was led by insurance stocks, which gained 6.7 % and 4.2 % in the first two trading days of the year. New China Life Insurance and China Pacific Insurance hit record highs on both days. The Shenzhen Component Index rose 1.4 % to 14,022.55 points, its highest close since January 2022, while the ChiNext Index gained 0.8 % to 3,319.29 points. Goldman Sachs expects continued growth in the Chinese stock market with annual gains of 15 to 20 % over the next two years, driven by earnings growth and higher valuations. Last year brought strong investor interest in technology stocks, with the Shanghai Composite up 18 %, Shenzhen Component up 30 % and ChiNext up 50 %.
Chinese firms dominate global humanoid robot shipments in 2025, AgiBot leads with 38% market share
In 2025, Chinese robotics firm AgiBot led global humanoid robot shipments with 38% market share and shipments of 5,168 units. It thus overtook major US players such as Tesla, which shipped 150 units and held just 1 % of the market. Five other Chinese companies made the top ten according to Omdia, with Unitree Robotics taking second place with 32% market share and 4,200 units shipped. Shenzhen-based UBTech Robotics was third with 1,000 units. Total global shipments increased by nearly 480 % to 13,318 units and are expected to reach 2.6 million by 2035. Chinese manufacturers are setting standards in high-volume production. This growth is attributed to favorable policies, infrastructure support, and investment from both the public and private sectors.
Tomáš Kučera & Yereth Jansen
China-insights.com/gnews.cz - GH
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