Invested 1.6 billion and earned 25 billion, "the Luckin Coffee mastermind" Li Hui has achieved another legendary success at Iluvatar CoreX

The AI wave is sweeping across industries, driving a surge in demand for computing power infrastructure, prompting AI chip enterprises to accelerate their commercialization processes and spurring accelerated capital operations across the sector.

On the morning of July 9, general-purpose GPU developer Iluvatar CoreX (9903.HK) announced in a public notice that it plans to place 14.857 million new shares at a price of HK$476 per share, with expected gross proceeds of HK$7.072 billion. The shares offered in this private placement account for approximately 5.52% of the total share capital after issuance, representing a roughly 15% discount to the previous trading day's closing price of HK$560.

On the same day, Iluvatar CoreX's stock opened lower but trended upward, closing 5.89% higher at HK$593 per share. The company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in January this year, and its latest share price has risen 310.10% above its IPO price.

Following its Hong Kong listing in January this year that raised net proceeds of HK$3.509 billion, combined with the HK$7 billion raised through this placement, Iluvatar CoreX has raised over HK$100 billion on the Hong Kong stock market in just half a year.

The sharp surge in Iluvatar CoreX's share price has delivered massive returns to leading early external shareholder CPE, which has a longstanding investment history with the firm dating back to 2017, having participated in its Series B, C, D, and D+ financing rounds for a total investment of approximately 1.67 billion yuan.

Calculated at the latest share price, the 20.62% stake in Iluvatar CoreX controlled by CPE has a market value of approximately HK$31.095 billion (around 27 billion yuan). Based on this valuation, CPE's unrealized gains on its Iluvatar CoreX investment exceed 25 billion yuan, representing an investment return ratio of over 15 times.

The Rising Tide of AI Chip Fundraising

Having been listed for only half a year, Iluvatar CoreX has launched a new round of financing, driven primarily by the explosive industry demand for general-purpose GPUs amid AI development. To accelerate the commercial rollout of its products, the company arranged this private placement financing.

Under this financing plan, Iluvatar CoreX will allocate the majority of the raised funds to stockpiling raw materials.

Iluvatar CoreX stated that due to industry demand fluctuations and supply chain volatility, the supply of materials including memory products, wafers, substrates, packaging materials, PCB components, and server parts has come under pressure, with memory products in particular seeing dramatic price increases. Accordingly, the company will direct 60% of the raised funds to enhancing supply chain resilience for critical materials and components, and build buffer inventories for key materials required for its next-generation products.

Furthermore, Iluvatar CoreX plans to allocate 15% of the raised funds to accelerate iteration and engineering validation of existing products, as well as the R&D and commercialization of next-generation offerings. 10% will be used to upgrade its full-stack software platform, model adaptation capabilities, and developer ecosystem, while the remaining 15% will be allocated to strategic investments, acquisitions, and supplementary working capital.

Notably, prior to this fundraising for stockpiling, market sources had reported that ByteDance was in discussions with Iluvatar CoreX to procure at least 50,000 AI chips, primarily for inference workloads.

If this transaction is successfully finalized, Iluvatar CoreX will take another major step forward in its product commercialization journey.

In 2025, Iluvatar CoreX recorded 339 million yuan in revenue from its inference chips. According to calculations from Guosen Securities, the company shipped 29,000 inference chips that year, translating to an average price of approximately 11,700 yuan per chip. At this price point, closing the aforementioned transaction would boost Iluvatar CoreX's inference chip revenue by nearly 70% this year.

In contrast to this placement fundraising, 80% of Iluvatar CoreX's IPO proceeds were directed toward R&D for products and solutions, with the remaining 20% allocated to product promotion and supplementary working capital.

By the end of May this year, out of the HK$3.509 billion in net IPO proceeds Iluvatar CoreX held, HK$1.044 billion had been utilized, leaving HK$2.465 billion unspent — the unused portion accounting for roughly 70% of the total IPO funds raised.

Apart from Iluvatar CoreX, multiple other AI chip enterprises have initiated capital operations recently.

On July 5, "China's first domestic GPU stock" on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Biren Technology, also announced a private placement fundraising with net proceeds of approximately HK$7.069 billion. Similar to Iluvatar CoreX, Biren Technology plans to direct the majority of its placement funds toward product commercialization rather than expanding R&D investment.

Earlier in October 2025, Cambricon completed an A-share private placement raising nearly 4 billion yuan. Since last December, a series of AI chip companies including Moore Threads (688795.SH), Mthreads (688802.SH), and Biren Technology have successively listed on the A-share and Hong Kong stock exchanges, completing their IPO fundraising.

Multiple additional AI chip firms are currently queuing for public listing. Earlier this year, Baidu-owned Kunlunxin confidentially submitted its listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, while Mthreads and Biren Technology are also advancing plans for secondary listings in Hong Kong and on the A-share market. On July 9, Enflame Technology, one of the "Four Dragons of Domestic GPUs", received approval for its STAR Market listing registration, and is likely to list on the A-share market soon.

Additionally, Alibaba-owned T-Head is in the preparation phase for an IPO. Alibaba CEO Wu Yongming previously stated that an IPO is not ruled out for T-Head in the future, but there is no clear timetable as of yet.

With the rapid development of the artificial intelligence industry, the competitive landscape of the AI chip track is undergoing profound changes. Most previously listed AI chip enterprises historically directed the majority of their raised funds toward technical R&D and related fields. As market demand for AI chip products continues to expand, commercial implementation capabilities are poised to become the core competency that all chip manufacturers will prioritize building in the next phase of development.

CPE's Li Hui Secures Massive Unrealized Gains

Unlike other domestic GPU companies, Iluvatar CoreX is not a typical founder-led enterprise.

Founded in 2015, Iluvatar CoreX was originally established by Li Yunpeng, a former executive of Oracle's database business. However, after 2021, the company's management experienced frequent upheaval: Li Yunpeng announced his departure that year, and Diao Shijing — former Director of the Electronic Information Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and former Co-President of Tsinghua Unigroup — took over as head of the company. In 2022, Diao Shijing announced his resignation for personal reasons, retaining only a board director position. In 2023, investor representative Ge Lujiang was appointed as Chairman and CEO of Iluvatar CoreX.

With a financial background, Ge Lujiang previously worked at professional services firms including BDO China, PwC, and Deloitte. In contrast, the founders of other leading domestic GPU companies are mostly technical experts.

Zhang Jianzhong of Moore Threads and Chen Weiliang of Mthreads both have backgrounds as veteran chip engineers: Zhang Jianzhong previously served as NVIDIA's Global Vice President and General Manager of the Greater China region, while Chen Weiliang held positions including Global Head of GPU SoC Design at AMD. Although Biren Technology founder Zhang Wen does not come from a semiconductor academic background, he has extensive experience working at multiple technology enterprises, including serving as President of SenseTime.

As an investor representative, Ge Lujiang does not hold the same level of authority over the company's development direction as the founders of other domestic GPU companies. Iluvatar CoreX's prospectus reveals that the company's management is overseen by a management committee composed of 12 directors and senior executives, with no single member holding veto power or a deciding vote.

Under the operation of the new management team, Iluvatar CoreX has achieved rapid development. Currently, the company maintains three major product lines — the TianGai series, ZhiKai series, and TongYang series — targeting training scenarios, inference scenarios, and AI solutions respectively. However, as the company remains in a phase of high R&D investment, it has not yet turned a profit.

In 2025, Iluvatar CoreX reported total revenue of 1.034 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 91.58%; its net loss attributable to shareholders reached 1.004 billion yuan, representing a 12.46% year-on-year expansion.

Against the backdrop of continuously rising momentum across the AI industrial chain, even though Iluvatar CoreX has not yet achieved profitability, its share price has performed strongly, with the latest price surging 310.10% above its IPO price. Driven by this substantial share price increase, pre-IPO shareholders of the company have reaped substantial unrealized paper profits.

Iluvatar CoreX's largest shareholder group consists of multiple shareholding platforms held by the company's employees and passive financial investors, holding a 21.25% stake. The largest external shareholder group is the "CPE Entities" composed of multiple shareholding platforms under CPE, holding a 20.62% stake.

Founded by renowned investor Li Hui, CPE is most famous for its contrarian investment in Luckin Coffee during its financial fraud scandal, emerging as the company's largest shareholder and leading Luckin Coffee's dramatic turnaround. Li Hui currently serves as Chairman of Luckin Coffee.

Apart from CPE, Iluvatar CoreX has also attracted investments from prominent institutions including Sequoia China, Yuanhe Fund, and Starlight Capital, all of which have secured substantial unrealized gains following the company's listing.

This article originates from the WeChat Official Account "Da Mo Finance" (ID: damofinance), authored by Da Mo Finance, and published with authorization from 36Kr.