New Edge Technologies has a market value of 420 billion yuan. How can a technical secondary school graduate become a billionaire?

In 2004, Gao Guangrong founded "Guangsheng Communication" with his partners. The business of this company overlapped with that of a company named "Yijielong". The two companies were in fierce competition, competing for orders, poaching employees from each other. Even the employees played a real - life version of "Infernal Affairs", working part - time while secretly staying in the rival company.

After several years of struggle without a clear winner, the two sides decided to make peace. In 2008, "Guangsheng Communication" and "Yijielong" were integrated into a new company. Taking one character from each of the two company names, Xinyisheng was born.

The subsequent story is quite magical. This enterprise born out of a "truce agreement" successfully listed on the Growth Enterprise Market in 2016. Now, it has joined the core supply chain of North American cloud giants. Along with Zhongji Innolight and Tianfu Communication, it is jokingly called the "Yizhongtian" and has become a popular trillion - market - value group in the A - share market.

At the close on December 18th, Xinyisheng's total market value reached 422.9 billion yuan, with an annual increase of 417% and a cumulative increase of over 3500% since 2023. Along with the company's take - off, Gao Guangrong also completed a magnificent transformation, evolving from a technical secondary school technician at Leshan Radio Factory to an industry tycoon worth tens of billions.

What happened behind such a remarkable turnaround?

From a technical secondary school graduate to a billionaire tycoon

Gao Guangrong's starting point was so ordinary that there was hardly any glory. Born in Leshan City, Sichuan Province in 1969, he didn't have a prestigious school background or a prominent family. In the late 1980s, he graduated from the Industrial Electrical Automation major at Chengdu Radio and Mechanical School with a technical secondary school diploma and was assigned to the Optical Communication Branch of Leshan Radio Factory as an ordinary technician.

He worked there for nearly a decade. In 1998, Gao Guangrong resigned to start a business. He jointly founded "Chengdu Optical Communication Electronics Co., Ltd." with several others and served as the general manager, mainly responsible for the agency sales of optical communication products, including optical fibers, optical cables, and optical modules.

In the following years, Gao Guangrong's entrepreneurial and career paths always revolved around optical communication: In 2001, he served as the procurement supervisor of Sichuan Jiuzhou Optoelectronics Company, and in 2002, he became the supervisor of "Guangsheng Communication".

2004 was a crucial year. Gao Guangrong co - founded "Guangsheng Communication" with his partners. After several years of entanglement with "Yijielong", Xinyisheng was born dramatically.

After the establishment of Xinyisheng, Gao Guangrong focused the core direction on the research and development of optical modules in the telecommunications field. Driven by the construction of the domestic 4G network, Xinyisheng successively launched 2.5G and 10G optical modules and entered the supply chains of mainstream equipment manufacturers such as Huawei and ZTE.

An optical module is a core optoelectronic device used in optical fiber communication. Its core function is to "convert electrical signals into optical signals and then convert optical signals back into electrical signals". An optical module is like a "toll station on the highway of data transmission". All massive data need to be converted by it before entering the "optical fiber highway".

In 2016, Xinyisheng successfully listed, becoming a "dark horse" in the optical communication track. In the year of listing, Xinyisheng achieved a revenue of 714 million yuan and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 105 million yuan. By 2024, Xinyisheng's revenue reached 8.647 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 2.838 billion yuan.

With the growth of performance, Xinyisheng's market value reached a historical high, and Gao Guangrong's wealth also increased accordingly. Based on Xinyisheng's current market value of 422.9 billion yuan, Gao Guangrong's 6.24% shareholding corresponds to a market value of over 26 billion yuan.

While his wealth was increasing, Gao Guangrong was also continuously adjusting his shareholding structure. Since the company's listing in 2016, his shareholding ratio has gradually decreased from the initial 14.09% and dropped to 7.40% by the end of 2024.

In 2025, the share - reduction actions continued. After a large - scale equity transfer in October, Gao Guangrong's shareholding ratio further decreased to 6.24%, and the cash - out amount from this single transfer reached as high as 3.749 billion yuan.

It's worth mentioning that this wealth report card is not without flaws. In February 2025, Gao Guangrong was fined and confiscated about 31.5 million yuan by the CSRC for illegal share - reduction and illegal information disclosure, which also added a complex color to this billionaire's turnaround story.

A "pig" on the tuyere, flying to a 420 - billion - yuan market value with 5G and AI

Behind Xinyisheng's market value exceeding 420 billion yuan are two strategic decisions that caught the industry tuyeres.

The first key opportunity for Xinyisheng after listing came from the wave of 5G commercialization. In 2017, the domestic 5G technology entered the industrial preparation stage, two years before its official commercialization in 2019.

Compared with the 4G era, 5G base stations have significantly higher requirements for the rate, bandwidth, and stability of optical modules. The 100G optical module can just meet the large - capacity high - speed data transmission requirements of 5G base station backhaul scenarios.

Before the commercialization of 5G technology, Xinyisheng had already made early arrangements. In the prospectus disclosed in early 2016, the construction project of the optical module production line was the primary fundraising project, which mentioned the construction of seven 40G/100G optical module production lines.

When the annual report for 2016 was released, Xinyisheng claimed that "the company is one of the few domestic enterprises that can deliver 100G optical modules in batches and master the packaging technology of high - speed optical device chips and optical devices."

This forward - looking layout was quickly translated into performance. In 2019, 5G was officially commercialized in China, and this year became the starting point for a new round of performance explosion for Xinyisheng: From 2019 to 2022, the company's revenue increased from 1.165 billion yuan to 3.311 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the parent company increased from 213 million yuan to 904 million yuan.

If the 5G wave helped Xinyisheng stand firmly in the first - tier of the industry, then the east wind of AI computing power directly pushed it to the peak of market value.

Since 2023, the AI large - model has triggered a computing power revolution. With the large - scale deployment of AI infrastructures such as NVIDIA's GPU clusters and Google's TPU systems, the data transmission volume within data centers has increased exponentially. The traditional 400G optical modules quickly encountered bottlenecks, and 800G and even 1.6T high - speed optical modules have become a necessity.

As early as in the 2021 annual report, Xinyisheng announced the successful launch of the 800G optical module product series. The 2023 annual report shows that the company has successfully launched the latest 800G/1.6T optical module products based on single - wave 200G optical devices in the industry.

Xinyisheng's technological breakthroughs are highly in line with the needs of North American cloud providers. A research report from Qunyi Securities shows that Xinyisheng's major customers include Meta, Oracle, etc.

In a research report from Guojin Securities, although the names of Xinyisheng's customers were not clearly mentioned, it was stated that the demand for high - speed optical modules from North American cloud providers such as NVIDIA, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft remained strong, and there was still room for Xinyisheng to increase its overseas optical module market share.

For reasons of business confidentiality, Xinyisheng did not disclose the names of its customers in official materials such as annual reports.

Xinyisheng's breakthrough not only relied on the external east wind but also on its solid internal strength.

On the technology side, Xinyisheng adopts a dual - drive model of "independent R & D + external mergers and acquisitions". A typical M&A move was to acquire 100% of the equity of Alpine in the United States, which not only strengthened the R & D and production capabilities of optical modules, coherent optical modules, and the application of silicon photonics technology in optical modules but also accelerated the global layout by leveraging Alpine's mature overseas business entity.

On the market side, Xinyisheng started to expand its production capacity overseas early. From 2023 to the present, the company has successively built and put into operation the first - and second - phase factories in Thailand. Relying on the dual advantages of "low tariffs + low costs" in the local area, it avoids trade barriers and can quickly respond to North American customers.

The results of the global layout are obvious. In 2024, Xinyisheng's foreign revenue accounted for as high as 78.70%. In the first three quarters of 2025, the company's revenue and net profit attributable to the parent company increased by 221.70% and 284.37% respectively, and the contribution of the foreign market as the main market cannot be underestimated.

Xinyisheng's turnaround story is not an isolated case. The "Yizhongtian" composed of Xinyisheng, Zhongji Innolight, and Tianfu Communication has become a trillion - market - value group in the A - share market. The rise of the "Yizhongtian" is not only a victory of the enterprise and the founder's foresight and perseverance but also a real microcosm of China's manufacturing industry moving towards high - end hard technology.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Delin Club" (ID: delinshe), author: Chidu Business, published by 36Kr with authorization.