MiniMax soars 54% in $619m Hong Kong AI IPO debut
TL;DR
Chinese generative AI startup MiniMax Group surged as much as 81% and closed up around 78% on its Hong Kong trading debut on January 9, 2026, after raising about HK$4.8 billion (~$619 million) in an IPO priced at the top of its range. Cornerstone investors including Alibaba and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority bought roughly 56% of the deal, underscoring strong demand for China’s first wave of public LLM companies.
About this summary
This article aggregates reporting from 4 news sources. The TL;DR is AI-generated from original reporting. Race to AGI's analysis provides editorial context on implications for AGI development.
Race to AGI Analysis
MiniMax’s explosive Hong Kong debut is one of the clearest signals yet that public markets are ready to bankroll pure-play AI model companies, not just chipmakers and cloud giants. The company is positioning itself as a Chinese “AI tiger” with multimodal models and consumer chat products that compete directly with OpenAI-style offerings. A near-80% first‑day pop, underpinned by heavyweight backers like Alibaba and ADIA, tells founders and regulators that listed equity can now support the same scale of AI investment that late‑stage private rounds have been funding.
Strategically, this pushes the AI race into a new phase where capital-intensive foundation model work is no longer confined to U.S. and private Chinese players. MiniMax will be under pressure to convert IPO proceeds into faster model training, more aggressive global expansion of its Talkie app, and deeper GPU procurement, which in turn may intensify competition for compute and talent in Asia. For the broader ecosystem, a successful listing creates a valuation benchmark for Zhipu and other Chinese LLM vendors eyeing IPOs, and gives Beijing a high‑profile proof point that domestic champions can tap public markets even under U.S. export controls.
