Chinese AI Firm MiniMax Prepares for Mainland China Listing After Shares Surge in Hong Kong
- tech360.tv
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
Chinese artificial intelligence model company MiniMax Group has officially kicked off plans to sell shares in mainland China. The move offers onshore investors access to AI players beyond chipmakers and completes a dual-listing status in addition to Hong Kong.
The Shanghai-headquartered company signed an agreement with Citic Securities to help prepare for a sale of yuan-denominated shares. While other details on the listing are scant, it is widely expected that MiniMax will trade on the Star Market. The board is a technology-heavy board dominated by China's leading AI chipmakers under the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
MiniMax is the latest AI firm to tap funding on China's onshore stock markets as global investors ramp up their bets on tech companies. This follows hyperscalers' investments in AI infrastructure gaining further momentum and the easing of Middle East tensions boosting the appeal of risk assets.
ChangXin Memory Technologies had its first-time stock sale approved by the Shanghai exchange, while the bourse is set to review the initial public offering application by Unitree Robotics. Global investors' interest in AI stocks is at an all-time high. The Nasdaq-100 index rose to a record and markets in South Korea and Taiwan also hit all-time highs.
The Star Market 50 index hit a record, taking its gain this year to about 30%. Shares of MiniMax rose 0.4% to HK$840 in the city, valuing the company at HK$264 billion. The stock has jumped 400% since its initial public offering in Jan.
Its peer, Knowledge Atlas Technology, which is also known as Zhipu but rebranded in 2025 as Z.ai, is ahead of MiniMax in the domestic listing. Beijing-based Zhipu hired Guotai Haitong Securities and China International Capital Corp in Feb. as joint sponsors to prepare for the stock sale.
MiniMax and Zhipu are set to be added to the Hang Seng Tech Index in June, which Morgan Stanley said would spur an inflow of as much as USD 1.75 billion. The reshuffle may help reverse the gauge's underperformance this year. This performance diverges from the AI trade due to the dominance of Chinese e-commerce platforms struggling with weakening consumer spending.
Founded in 2021, MiniMax is known for its M-series large language models and popular consumer applications, including video-generation tool Hailuo AI. Its latest flagship MiniMax M2.7 model currently ranks eighth among open-weight models on the Artificial Analysis benchmark. It trails domestic rivals Moonshot AI, Xiaomi, DeepSeek, and Zhipu AI.
While MiniMax's revenue surged nearly 160% year on year to USD 79 million in 2025, annual losses widened to USD 1.87 billion. This was largely due to fair-value changes on financial liabilities. The company said that its base of clients and developers surged fivefold from half a year ago to more than 1 million.
MiniMax Group has initiated plans for a dual-listing by preparing to sell yuan-denominated shares in mainland China.
The company hired Citic Securities to prepare for the mainland sale, which is widely expected to trade on the Star Market.
MiniMax shares have surged 400% since its initial public offering in Jan., reaching a valuation of HK$264 billion.
Source: SCMP
