China's AI startups race to go public in Hong Kong, led by spatial intelligence pioneer Manycore

Overview

Manycore Tech, a Hangzhou-based company that builds AI tools for understanding and generating three-dimensional physical spaces, debuted on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on April 17, 2026, and its shares nearly tripled in value on the first day. Retail investors oversubscribed the offering by roughly 1,600 times, and the stock closed at HKD 18.60—up 144% from its offer price of HKD 7.62. It is the world's first publicly listed 'spatial intelligence' company and the first of Hangzhou's celebrated 'Six Little Dragons' AI startups to reach public markets.

Why it matters

A new class of AI companies is going public in Hong Kong, redirecting billions in tech capital away from US exchanges and into Chinese spatial and generative AI.

Key Indicators

1,591×

Retail oversubscription

Hong Kong retail investors bid for nearly 1,600 times the shares available to them

+144%

First-day closing gain

Shares closed at HKD 18.60 versus the offer price of HKD 7.62

~$156M

IPO proceeds

Manycore raised approximately HKD 1.22 billion in the offering

Major AI IPOs on HKEX in 2026

Biren, Zhipu AI, MiniMax, and now Manycore have all debuted this year

+110.5%

Q1 2026 AI revenue growth

Manycore's AI application revenue more than doubled year-over-year in Q1 2026

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People Involved

Xiaohuang (Victor) Huang

Led company through IPO; now heads the world's first publicly listed spatial intelligence firm

Jixun Foo

Board-level investor in Manycore; prominent China tech venture capitalist

Organizations Involved

Manycore Tech

AI Technology Company

Publicly listed on HKEX (00068.HK) as of April 17, 2026

Manycore operates China's largest cloud-native spatial design platform and is building foundation models that enable AI to understand, reason about, and generate three-dimensional physical spaces.

Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX)

Stock Exchange

Actively attracting Chinese AI listings through new specialist technology rules

HKEX introduced its Chapter 18C listing framework in 2023 specifically to attract high-growth, pre-profit technology firms, and launched the TECH Channel in 2025 to further streamline the process.

Timeline

Manycore Tech surges 144% in Hong Kong debut
IPO

Manycore Tech, the first of Hangzhou's Six Little Dragons to go public, lists on HKEX as the world's first spatial intelligence company. Retail investors oversubscribed the offering 1,591 times, and shares closed at HKD 18.60 versus the HKD 7.62 offer price.
Today
MiniMax doubles on Hong Kong debut
IPO

Video-generation startup MiniMax lists on HKEX, raising HKD 4.8 billion. Institutional orders were halted early due to overwhelming demand, and shares doubled on the first day.
January 9th, 2026
Zhipu AI lists on HKEX
IPO

Tsinghua University-backed large language model developer Zhipu AI debuts in Hong Kong, raising roughly $560 million and rising 13% on its first day.
January 8th, 2026
Biren Technology kicks off HKEX's AI IPO wave
IPO

Chinese AI chip designer Biren Technology debuts as HKEX's first listing of 2026, raising $717 million and closing up 76% on its first day.
January 2nd, 2026
Manycore's SpatialLM tops Hugging Face trends
Technical

Manycore's open-source spatial language model, SpatialLM, reaches the top three on Hugging Face's trending models list after being accepted at the NeurIPS conference, raising the company's profile ahead of its IPO.
December 2025
HKEX launches TECH Channel
Regulatory

Hong Kong's exchange introduces a streamlined listing pathway for specialist technology and biotech firms, cutting IPO timelines to as few as 65 business days.
May 2025
Xi Jinping hosts private tech entrepreneurs at symposium
Political

Chinese President Xi Jinping convenes a high-profile meeting with private-sector technology leaders, widely interpreted as a definitive signal that the regulatory crackdown era has ended and AI investment is encouraged.
February 2025
DeepSeek releases R1, shaking global AI assumptions
Industry

Hangzhou-based DeepSeek publishes its R1 reasoning model, demonstrating that Chinese labs can produce frontier-competitive AI at a fraction of US training costs. The release catalyzes investor enthusiasm for Chinese AI startups.
January 20th, 2025
HKEX opens door to pre-profit tech listings
Regulatory

Hong Kong's Chapter 18C listing rules take effect, creating a pathway for specialist technology companies—including AI firms—to go public without established profitability.
March 31st, 2023

Scenarios

Hong Kong becomes the Nasdaq of Chinese AI

Discussed by: HKEX leadership, Goldman Sachs Asia equity research, Financial Times analysis

If Manycore and its predecessors sustain their post-IPO valuations and more of the Six Little Dragons follow suit—with Moonshot AI reportedly weighing an $18 billion listing—HKEX could consolidate its position as the primary global venue for Chinese AI capital formation. This scenario accelerates if US investment restrictions on Chinese AI firms tighten further, pushing companies that might have considered New York listings toward Hong Kong by default. The exchange's Chapter 18C and TECH Channel infrastructure was built precisely for this outcome.

AI IPO bubble pops as monetization lags

Discussed by: Short sellers, Caixin commentary, Bank of America Asia technology analysts

Several of these newly listed AI companies are pre-profit or early-revenue. If the gap between sky-high debut valuations and actual revenue growth widens—as happened with many 2020-2021 Hong Kong tech listings that later lost 70-90% of their value—a correction could stall the pipeline. Chinese consumers and businesses have shown a willingness to use AI tools but a reluctance to pay premium prices for them, compressing margins. A single high-profile post-IPO collapse could cool the entire wave.

Spatial intelligence emerges as the next major AI platform category

Discussed by: Fei-Fei Li (World Labs founder), NeurIPS research community, architecture and manufacturing industry analysts

If Manycore's spatial models and World Labs' competing American efforts both demonstrate commercially valuable applications—in architecture, robotics, digital twins for manufacturing, and urban planning—spatial intelligence could follow the trajectory of large language models from research curiosity to mainstream platform. Manycore's advantage is a decade of 3D design data from millions of Kujiale users; World Labs' advantage is over $1 billion in funding and Stanford research talent. The category's legitimacy as a public-market investment thesis depends on whether these tools generate real revenue beyond the initial hype.

Regulatory whiplash returns and freezes Chinese tech IPOs

Discussed by: Institutional investors burned by the 2021 crackdown, Asia-focused hedge funds, S&P Global sovereign risk analysts

Beijing's support for private AI companies is currently enthusiastic, but the 2021 precedent—when regulators halted Ant Group's $37 billion IPO two days before listing and launched sweeping crackdowns on ride-hailing, education, and gaming—looms over every Chinese tech investment. A political trigger, a data-security incident involving a listed AI firm, or a shift in leadership priorities could reverse the supportive stance quickly. International investors who remember losing billions in the last cycle may be quicker to sell at the first sign of regulatory change.

Historical Context

Ant Group IPO halt and Chinese tech crackdown (2020-2022)

November 2020 – 2022

What Happened

Chinese regulators suspended Ant Group's $37 billion IPO—which would have been the world's largest—just two days before its scheduled dual listing in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The halt followed public comments by Ant's founder Jack Ma criticizing Chinese financial regulators. It triggered a broader crackdown on Chinese technology companies: Didi was forced to delist from the New York Stock Exchange months after its IPO, antitrust fines hit Alibaba and Meituan, and entire sectors (online tutoring, gaming) faced new restrictions.

Outcome

Short Term

Chinese tech stocks lost hundreds of billions of dollars in market value. IPO pipelines froze. Foreign investors pulled capital from Chinese tech funds.

Long Term

Chinese tech companies largely abandoned US listings in favor of Hong Kong. HKEX introduced Chapter 18C specifically to rebuild its tech IPO pipeline. The episode left institutional investors with lasting wariness about Chinese regulatory risk.

Why It's Relevant Today

The current AI IPO wave is happening in the political window Beijing has deliberately opened after the crackdown era. Investors are watching for any sign that the regulatory cycle could turn again—making the sustainability of government support the key variable for this entire wave.

Kuaishou's Hong Kong IPO and the 2021 tech listing frenzy (2021)

February 2021

What Happened

Short-video platform Kuaishou listed on HKEX and surged 194% on its first day, reaching a market capitalization of over $160 billion. The debut was oversubscribed more than 1,200 times by retail investors, echoing the frenzy now seen in Manycore's listing. The IPO was the centerpiece of a broader boom in Hong Kong tech listings.

Outcome

Short Term

Kuaishou's market cap briefly exceeded that of Baidu. The euphoria drew more Chinese tech companies toward Hong Kong listings.

Long Term

Within a year, Kuaishou's stock had fallen more than 80% from its peak as the tech crackdown hit and growth expectations proved unrealistic. The collapse became a cautionary tale about first-day pops and oversubscription mania.

Why It's Relevant Today

Manycore's 1,591-times oversubscription and 144% first-day gain closely mirror Kuaishou's debut dynamics. Whether the spatial intelligence company avoids the same post-IPO decline depends on whether its revenue growth—up 110% year-over-year in Q1 2026—can sustain the valuation investors have assigned.

World Labs launch and the 'spatial intelligence' category (2024)

September 2024

What Happened

Stanford professor Fei-Fei Li, known as the 'godmother of AI' for her foundational work on the ImageNet dataset, launched World Labs with the explicit mission of building 'spatial intelligence'—AI that understands and generates three-dimensional physical environments. The company raised over $1 billion from investors including Andreessen Horowitz and NEA, reaching a valuation above $5 billion before shipping a product.

Outcome

Short Term

World Labs legitimized 'spatial intelligence' as a named AI category distinct from language models and image generators, attracting both research talent and investor attention.

Long Term

The company's Marble model demonstrated real-time generation of navigable 3D environments, establishing a technical benchmark. The category now has a US research-led entrant and a Chinese commercially-led public company, setting up a parallel competition.

Why It's Relevant Today

Manycore's IPO makes it the publicly traded counterpart to World Labs in spatial AI. While World Labs approaches the problem from foundational research with massive private funding, Manycore comes from a decade of commercial deployment with millions of real-world 3D design datasets—two different bets on the same thesis that AI must move beyond flat text and images into understanding physical space.