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Cambricon Technologies, more commonly known in China by its local name Hanwuji, is a fabless designer of AI chips that is the hottest name among Chinese equities right now, having soared by 130 percent in just the past two weeks or so. Yet, behind this compelling bullish story lies a critical risk factor, one that emanates from Cambricon’s chronic customer concentration problem.
Up until recently, Cambricon was known in China as the “king of losses,” having amassed cumulative losses of around 5 billion yuan ($970 million) as of the end of 2024, with the company’s inclusion in the US Commerce Department’s Entities List back in 2022 precipitation a severe retrenchment phase.
However, the US quasi-export ban on AI chips back in April, when the Trump administration imposed stringent licensing requirements on NVIDIA and AMD for selling their GPUs in China, came as nothing short of a salvation for the struggling AI chip designer as its business boomed.
While Cambricon is only expected to ship 145,000 units of its bespoke AI chip in 2025, its shipment volume is expected to exceed 2.3 million units by 2030, as per Goldman Sachs’ estimates.
Do note that Cambricon’s recently revamped AI chip, Siyuan 590, offers around 90 percent of the performance that NVIDIA’s A100 GPU can eke out, with a TPP of 4,493 vs. 4,992 for the A100.
Cambricon is currently in its hyper-growth phase, with revenue jumping by an astronomical 4,348 percent to $402 million in the first half of 2025. And, its share price is responding accordingly.
To wit, Cambricon’s market cap has now eclipsed $90 billion and is equivalent to 68 percent of SK Hynix’s market-based capitalization despite earning just 1.4 percent of the South Korean giant’s revenues.
It is hardly a surprise, therefore, that Goldman Sachs has now hiked its target for Cambricon shares for the second time in two weeks to 2,104 RMB.
Of course, this bubble-like valuation faces hefty risks. For one, Cambricon is competing against industry giants like Huawei and Alibaba in the AI GPU sphere, both of whom have virtually limitless pockets. What’s more, Cambricon is reportedly drawing nearly 80 percent of its revenue from ByteDance alone, which entails a chronic customer concentration risk.
Nonetheless, with Goldman Sachs on a stock price target-hiking spree, it seems Cambricon shares can yet scale additional market cap zeniths.
