![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/GettyImages-2271743275-e1776417131457.jpg?w=2048\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Hong Kong\u2019s AI IPO boom produces its latest entrant today, as design AI startup Manycore Tech begins trading after seeking up to 1.02 billion Hong Kong dollars ($130 million) in funding, becoming the first of China\u2019s six celebrated \u201cLittle Dragons\u201d from Hangzhou to reach public markets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe IPO is important for us to attract the most talented engineers to join us, to buy more GPUs, and to collect more data,\u201d Victor Huang, Manycore\u2019s chair and one of its cofounders, told Fortune ahead of the trading debut.<\/p>\n
Manycore shares closed at 18.60 Hong Kong dollars ($2.38), 144% above the offer price of 7.62 Hong Kong dollars.<\/p>\n
The Hangzhou-based startup is a bet on \u201cspatial intelligence,\u201d moving beyond the word- and language-based work of large language models like OpenAI\u2019s GPT and DeepSeek\u2019s V3 to instead create AI models that can autonomously work in the real world.<\/p>\n
These programs, also called \u201cworld models,\u201d are key to operations like robotics and autonomous driving, where machinery has to react to external stimuli, like how a robotaxi needs to slow down in response to changing traffic conditions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Huang described spatial intelligence as similar to a person\u2019s or animal\u2019s innate ability to understand the world around them. \u201cWhen you enter a room, you can understand where you are and what\u2019s in front of you. And if you want to take a seat, you can understand which seat is empty,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are now trying to apply AI in the physical dimension,\u201d said Jixun Foo, senior managing partner at Singapore-based venture capital firm Granite Asia, and an early backer of Manycore. He pointed out that viral videos of humanoid robots dancing, while impressive, are often carrying out preprogrammed routines. \u201cIf you want a different performance you have to program it again. You can\u2019t just tell the robot to do this or that action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Granite Asia senior managing partner Jixun Foo speaking at Fortune Brainstorm AI Singapore, July 22, 2025.<\/p>\n
Graham Uden for Fortune<\/p>\n
Some of AI\u2019s biggest names are also working on world models. Both ImageNet creator Fei-Fei Li and former Meta chief scientist Yann LeCun see these models as the next step in AI development.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LeCun has argued that video data can help train world models, but Manycore and Huang instead think the startup\u2019s vast repository of 3D assets will be a more useful dataset. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that if you have enough video, you can train the rules of the physical world,\u201d Huang said.<\/p>\n
Instead, \u201cwe\u2019d accumulated a huge amount of 3D data, almost 500 million assets from the real world. We had the training data, so we believed we could make the best physical AI in the world,\u201d he argued.\u00a0<\/p>\n
China\u2019s AI sector has released many of its models on an open-source basis, which has helped boost the reputation of its AI startups and won converts in the global tech sector, including in Silicon Valley. \u201cPeople try Chinese AI. It\u2019s free. It\u2019s open-source. And when they try it, it\u2019s great,\u201d Huang explained. Manycore has already released several open-source models, including SpatialLM, a spatial language model that can understand and generate 3D environments, and SpatialGen.<\/p>\n
Still, in recent weeks, some tech companies, like Alibaba and Knowledge Atlas, better known as Z.ai, have started to release models on a proprietary basis, at least in the initial stages, as monetizing AI work has proved tricky for Chinese companies.<\/p>\n
But Foo thinks a company like Manycore can preserve its edge even if it open-sources its models. \u201cFor Manycore, it\u2019s not just about their model, but also the dataset they have built. That dataset is unique to them, right? If you have a competitive edge that you can hold on to, then you can open-source something,\u201d Foo said.<\/p>\n
The first of the \u2018Little Dragons\u2019 to go public<\/p>\n
Manycore, founded in 2011, is one of the \u201csix Little Dragons,\u201d an informal group of six tech and AI startups based in Hangzhou, now one of China\u2019s leading AI hubs. Manycore is the first of the Dragons to tap public markets; Unitree, the buzzy robotics manufacturer, will list on Shanghai\u2019s stock exchange later this year.<\/p>\n
The company got its start as a design software business, building Kujiale, a platform that lets users create 3D renderings of interior spaces, and its international counterpart Coohom, which now serves customers in more than 200 countries. IDG Capital and Hillhouse Investment are among its previous backers.<\/p>\n
Huang was an engineer on Nvidia\u2019s CUDA team before returning to China to build a business around rendering. \u201cThe economy in the U.S. wasn\u2019t doing well at the time, but in China, real estate was booming,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n
That work helped convince Foo, who spent time at HP, to back the company. \u201cI used to use a lot of 3D software when I was designing HP printers,\u201d Foo explained. \u201cAnd I thought this was pretty cool: I was using it for mechanical products, and now they are doing it for a physical world.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to its IPO prospectus, Manycore generated 820 million Chinese yuan ($120 million) in revenue last year, growing by 8.6% from the previous year. It also earned a slim operating profit of 18.6 million yuan ($2.7 million), even as it posted an overall net loss of 428 million yuan ($62.8 million).\u00a0<\/p>\n
China\u2019s real estate market is still in the throes of a prolonged slump, which Foo admits is a \u201cheadwind\u201d for Manycore. Still, the company is expanding into international markets. \u201cWhat gives me comfort is the resilience of the team. They stuck in there, and they figured things out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Design companies have been hit hard in recent months; shares in Adobe and Figma have plunged as AI providers like OpenAI and Anthropic work design tools into their models. Some design startups are reinventing themselves as AI companies: Canva on Thursday launched a new suite of agentic offerings that allow users to automate much of the design process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Hong Kong boom<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t Manycore\u2019s first attempt at public markets. The company was on track for a U.S. listing in 2021, before withdrawing its application after Beijing regulators scrutinized Didi Global\u2019s U.S. IPO and forced the ride-hailing giant to delist, unnerving other Chinese companies considering U.S. listings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNowadays, the Hong Kong market is the best for a Chinese AI company,\u201d Huang says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Manycore is just the latest AI IPO to hit Hong Kong\u2019s market this year. AI and AI-related companies have led to a surge in debuts in the Chinese city, with listings raising almost $14 billion in the first quarter of the year. Some shares have surged by eye-popping amounts: MiniMax and Knowledge Atlas, two AI model developers, have risen by around 450% and 650%, respectively, since their early January IPOs.<\/p>\n
More IPOs are on the way. Victory Giant, which makes printed circuit boards, hopes to raise $2.2 billion in its IPO; its shares will debut on April 21. Other startups reportedly considering IPOs are Kimi developer Moonshot AI and smart glasses manufacturer Rokid.<\/p>\n
Bonnie Chan, CEO of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing, pushed back at this week\u2019s HSBC Global Investment Summit against the characterization of the market as simply a conduit for Chinese capital. \u201cWhen people say that Hong Kong\u2019s stock exchange is just hosting Chinese companies, it\u2019s not doing those companies justice,\u201d she said, noting that around 40% of companies that listed in Hong Kong last year generated more than half their revenue from non-Chinese sources. \u201cI call them Chinese MNCs [multinational corporations]. They\u2019re very international.\u201d<\/p>\n
China\u2019s AI sector has been under fresh scrutiny from global investors since early last year, when DeepSeek\u2014another of Hangzhou\u2019s Little Dragons\u2014released its powerful and surprisingly efficient models, changing the conversation about Chinese innovation. <\/p>\n
Physical AI, in particular, is emerging as a Chinese strength. The country\u2019s dense manufacturing ecosystem can produce robots, sensors, and advanced components at a cost below rivals in other countries. Heavy investment in the electrical grid also allows China to rapidly expand the data centers needed to train large models. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a race on the foundational model,\u201d Foo said. \u201cIt\u2019s a race on the infrastructure. It\u2019s a race on compute. It\u2019s a race on energy.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Foo and Granite Asia, which was born from the Asia operations of former VC giant GGV Capital, aren\u2019t entirely focused on the Chinese market. \u201cWe are more pan-Asian,\u201d he explained.\u00a0Earlier this year, Granite Asia partnered with DBS to launch a new $110 million fund to give the Southeast Asian bank\u2019s customers \u201cearly access\u201d to IPO-stage companies in the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur strategy is to be able to invest in companies early. We want to help them grow and scale outside of their home market,\u201d Foo says. \u201cWe have a good pipeline of companies going IPO.\u201d <\/p>\n
Update, April 17, 2026: This article has been updated with Manycore\u2019s first-day share performance.<\/p>\n
#Manycore #bets #spatial #intelligence #IPO<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hong Kong\u2019s AI IPO boom produces its latest entrant today, as design AI startup Manycore…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[245],"tags":[468,173,9008,1175,1042,1039,9009,9010],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stock999.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}