Is AI hardware darling Cambricon China’s Nvidia, or simply a cautionary tale in the making

Cambricon’s soaring market value reflects investor hopes for China’s domestic AI hardware ecosystem
Rapid revenue growth reveals the company’s financial turnaround after years of losses
Heavy reliance on one client and geopolitical restrictions raise doubts about its long term sustainability

Cambricon Technologies has quickly become one of the more closely followed names in China’s semiconductor industry.

The Beijing-based AI chip designer has seen its stock price skyrocket recently, at one point earning it a market value above RMB580 billion, approximately $81.2 billion.

That puts it ahead of the likes of MediaTek and SMIC, which is very unusual for a company whose annual revenue still trails many of its international rivals.

Inevitable questions

Founded by brothers Chen Tianshi and Chen Yunji in 2016, Cambricon has focused on developing processors tailored for artificial intelligence.

Its Siyuan product line has evolved rapidly, with the Siyuan 590 chip said to achieve about 80% of the performance of Nvidia’s A100 while being built on a domestic 7nm process.

A follow-up model, the Siyuan 690, is expected to be positioned against Nvidia’s H100.

The firm’s financial turnaround has certainly been rapid. It generated RMB28.81 billion (approx $4.03 billion) in revenue in the first half of 2025, which is more than 40 times the figure a year earlier.

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Profitability has also improved, with RMB1.038 billion (around $145 million) in net income recorded over the same period, coming after years of losses.

For many investors, this has strengthened the view that Cambricon could form a central pillar in China’s efforts to build a domestic AI hardware ecosystem.

However, questions remain about quite how durable this growth is, with many market watchers wisely asking questions, reminding me of what happened with CoreWeave not so long ago.

Nearly all of Cambricon’s revenue comes from cloud chips used in training large-scale AI models, and most of its sales are tied to a handful of customers.

Its largest client, unnamed but believed to be a major cloud provider, reportedly contributes the bulk of revenue. Any change in spending by that customer and Cambricon’s earnings could tank.

Cambricon also faces geopolitical pressures. It was placed on Washington’s trade blacklist in 2022, which restricts access to overseas suppliers, forcing it to rely on local foundries as access to TMSC is also blocked.

Huawei and others are all pushing AI hardware alternatives that could win market share to Cambricon’s detriment.

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Whether Cambricon can maintain momentum will depend on widening its customer base, securing reliable production, and navigating a highly contested domestic market.