Chinese AI Giants MiniMax and Zhipu Plan 2026 Hong Kong IPOs

Have you ever watched a market that everyone says is dead suddenly roar back to life?

That’s exactly what seems to be happening right now in Hong Kong. While U.S. tech investors were busy panicking over Oracle’s ugly earnings miss and dumping anything remotely connected to artificial intelligence, something much quieter – but potentially far more important – was happening across the Pacific.

Two of China’s most promising AI startups, MiniMax and Zhipu AI, just received formal approval from China’s securities regulator to launch initial public offerings on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as early as the first quarter of 2026.

A New Chapter for Chinese AI on Global Markets

Let that sink in for a second.

After years of regulatory crackdowns, delistings fears, and a pretty brutal bear market for Chinese tech stocks, we’re suddenly seeing Beijing give the green light to its crown jewels in artificial intelligence to tap international capital markets again. And they’re choosing Hong Kong – the same exchange that once looked like it might never recover its former glory as Asia’s IPO capital.

In my view, this isn’t just another couple of listings. It feels like the opening act of something much bigger.

Who Are MiniMax and Zhipu, Anyway?

If you haven’t been following the Chinese AI scene closely, these names might not ring a bell yet. But trust me – they will.

MiniMax, founded in 2021, has exploded onto the scene with its large language model platform and the wildly popular AI companion app “Talkie.” Think Character.AI but with significantly deeper cultural resonance in Asia. The company reportedly hit a $2.5 billion valuation in its latest funding round, backed by none other than Alibaba and Hillhouse Capital.

Zhipu AI, sometimes called “China’s OpenAI,” was co-founded by Tsinghua University professors and has been aggressively pushing the frontier of Chinese-language large models. Its GLM series has consistently ranked among the top domestic alternatives to Western models. The company counts Tencent, Meituan, and Ant Group among its strategic investors.

Both companies have something crucial in common: they’ve managed to build world-class AI products while navigating China’s complex regulatory environment. That alone makes them fascinating case studies.

Why Hong Kong, Why Now?

The timing raises eyebrows.

Just last week, Oracle shares cratered 10% after missing cloud revenue expectations, dragging down the entire AI infrastructure trade with it. Investors suddenly remembered that building AI actually costs obscene amounts of money, and the path to profitability remains… theoretical for many players.

Yet here we are, with Chinese regulators apparently comfortable letting their best AI hope go public at potentially sky-high valuations.

“The approval signals strong government support for new economy companies, especially in strategic emerging industries like artificial intelligence.”

– Anonymous Beijing-based tech analyst

There are a few converging factors that make this moment possible.

• Hong Kong has aggressively reformed its listing rules over the past few years to attract new-economy companies
• The Hang Seng Tech Index is up more than 40% from its 2024 lows – someone’s buying
• China’s domestic venture capital market has largely dried up; founders need exit paths
• Beijing appears to have decided that AI is too strategically important to keep completely bottled up

Perhaps most interestingly, both companies are coming to market with actual products, users, and – whisper it – revenue. In an increasingly rare phenomenon in the AI world.

The Backers Tell Their Own Story

Look at the cap tables and you start to understand the bigger picture.

When Alibaba backs MiniMax and Tencent backs Zhipu, this stops being just about two startups. It becomes a proxy war between China’s internet giants in the AI arena. Both Alibaba and Tencent have their own massive AI efforts, but they’re clearly hedging their bets by investing in the most promising pure-play AI companies as well.

This mirrors what we saw in the ride-hailing wars (DiDi), the food delivery wars (Meituan vs Ele.me), and the short video wars (Douyin vs Kuaishou). China’s tech giants rarely put all their eggs in one basket.

Comparing the Global AI IPO Landscape

What’s fascinating is how different the risk profiles look. U.S. AI companies are burning cash at historic rates to build infrastructure. Chinese AI companies have had to be profitable (or close to it) almost from day one, thanks to the domestic funding winter.

The Oracle Hangover and What It Means

Let’s talk about that Oracle print for a moment, because the contrast couldn’t be sharper.

Oracle dropped 10% in a single session because its cloud revenue growth slowed and the company admitted it’s carrying over $100 billion in debt and commitments for data center build out. The market suddenly remembered that someone has to pay for all those GPUs.

Meanwhile, MiniMax and Zhipu have largely relied on domestic cloud providers and optimized their models to run efficiently on available hardware. They didn’t have the option of raising $10 billion and burning it on H100 clusters. They had to make money.

Call it forced discipline or survival instinct, but it might actually be an advantage when they face public market scrutiny.

What This Means for Investors

Here’s where it gets really interesting.

Hong Kong listings of Chinese tech companies have historically been… let’s call them “complicated” for Western investors. Variable interest entities, regulatory risk, questions about data security – the list goes on.

But AI changes the calculus.

When the underlying technology is seen as strategically vital to national security on both sides of the Pacific, suddenly everyone wants exposure. We saw this with semiconductors. We’re seeing it now with artificial intelligence.

The smart money will likely start positioning in Hong Kong tech names well before these IPOs price. The Hang Seng Tech Index ETF (like 3067.HK or KWEB in the US) could see significant inflows if this narrative takes hold.

The Bigger Picture: China’s AI Ambition Goes Public

Step back and what you’re really see is China making a statement.

After years of watching U.S. companies dominate AI headlines and valuations, Beijing is saying: We have world-class AI companies too. And they’re ready for prime time.

The fact that both MiniMax and Zhipu developed competitive models despite limited access to cutting-edge Nvidia chips is, frankly, remarkable. It suggests Chinese AI research has found ways to innovate around hardware constraints that Western companies haven’t had to contend with.

Whether these IPOs ultimately succeed or fail, they represent something profound: China’s AI ecosystem is maturing faster than most Western observers realize.

And now the rest of the world is about to get a front-row seat.

The dragon is waking up. The only question is how loudly it plans to roar in 2026.