Cambricon reported Q1 revenue of 2.88 billion yuan ($398 million), up 159% from 1.11 billion a year ago. Net profit hit 1.01 billion yuan, nearly tripling from 356 million. The stock jumped 14% the day after earnings — its biggest single-day gain since late August last year. Bernstein analyst Qingyuan Lin's team said the numbers confirm Cambricon has entered a "phase of scalable profitability," driven by surging AI computing demand and operating leverage.
Cambricon and Huawei are fighting over the same turf: US export controls have cut off Nvidia and AMD from selling high-end AI accelerators into China. Both Chinese companies are on the US Commerce Department's Entity List, barring them from American technology and TSMC manufacturing. Their chips still lag behind US rivals, but Chinese enterprises aren't backing away from domestic alternatives. Cambricon's AI chip production capacity could more than triple this year, and its stock has doubled over the past 12 months.
Morgan Stanley expects China's AI chip market to reach $67 billion by 2030, with over three-quarters supplied by domestic players — up from just one-third in 2024. Other Chinese chip firms also posted strong quarters: Muxi (an AI chip maker) saw revenue jump 75% year-over-year, and NAURA Technology (semiconductor equipment) grew 26%.
Earlier this week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang joined a meeting with King Charles and other tech leaders to discuss the "valley of death" for UK startups — a reminder that even as Nvidia is locked out of China, its CEO remains a central figure in global AI investment conversations.