1.1 trillion, Innolight has just launched another IPO.

On July 30, China's leading optical module manufacturer Eoptolink (03308.HK) was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, realizing its "A+H" dual-platform layout. The IPO was priced at HK$980 per share, raising approximately HK$53.4 billion, making it the largest IPO on Hong Kong's stock market this year.

It is worth noting that as a participant in the AI computing power track, Eoptolink has attracted 29 high-profile cornerstone investors including Temasek, GL Ventures, JPMorgan Asset Management, BlackRock, IDG Capital, Yunfeng Fund and Tencent for this offering. During the prospectus phase, these investors subscribed for a total of about USD 3.45 billion worth of shares, accounting for 49% of the total global offering shares.

For this listing, Eoptolink stated that the raised funds will be mainly invested in three directions: R&D of optical interconnection products, global production capacity expansion, and strategic acquisitions and investments. Meanwhile, Eoptolink also disclosed in the prospectus that it has actively completed the adaptation of 3.2T silicon optical modules for Nvidia's Rubin next-generation computing power platform, and expects to achieve large-scale mass production in 2028.

76 Years Old, Ushering in Another Super IPO

According to the prospectus, the actual controller of Eoptolink is Wang Weixiu, who holds a total of 17.34% equity stake in Eoptolink through direct shareholding and persons acting in concert.

Affected by the domestic and overseas market environment, Eoptolink's share price dropped by 13% after landing on the Hong Kong stock market, but its market value still reached HK$1.13 trillion, exceeding the trillion mark. However, 10 years ago, Wang Weixiu was just an owner of a washing machine factory, who successfully reversed the fate of Inter-equip and his own life through an acquisition of RMB 2.8 billion.

In 1987, 37-year-old Wang Weixiu resigned from a state-owned factory, brought RMB 230,000 and 21 fellow villagers, and founded a motor winding equipment factory in Longkou, Shandong Province. With his in-depth research in the mechanical field, Wang Weixiu built China's first automatic production line for washing machine motors, and successfully listed on the ChiNext in 2012.

However, with the fading of dividends in the home appliance industry, Inter-equip founded by Wang Weixiu soon encountered performance bottlenecks after listing. In 2015, the annual profit of Inter-equip was only RMB 450,000. Under this background, Wang Weixiu had to find a new way out.

After a series of investigations, Wang Weixiu set his sights on Suzhou Xuchuang. At that time, Suzhou Xuchuang fell into financing difficulties after failing to go public on the US stock market, and the capital-hungry Suzhou Xuchuang reached a consensus with Wang Weixiu. In 2016, Wang Weixiu acquired 100% equity of Suzhou Xuchuang at a price of RMB 2.8 billion. At that time, the total assets of Inter-equip were only RMB 632 million, and the acquisition amount was almost 5 times the total assets of Inter-equip.

Nevertheless, to facilitate this transaction, Wang Weixiu paid out of his own pocket and invested RMB 284 million. After 10 years of accumulation, he finally got an amazing return. According to the 2026 Forbes China Rich List, Wang Weixiu ranks 31st with a net worth of USD 14.3 billion, equivalent to about RMB 96.9 billion; this year, as Eoptolink's market value exceeded the RMB 1.2 trillion mark, Wang Weixiu's real-time net worth soared to RMB 2200 billion, up 127% from before.

What really shocked the market is not only this "burn one's boats" style acquisition by Wang Weixiu, but also the 10-year wait. More importantly, after contributing the capital, this Shandong "veteran" voluntarily gave up the management power and handed over 100% of the operational control to Liu Sheng, the founder of Suzhou Xuchuang.

According to the resume, Liu Sheng obtained his bachelor's degree from Tsinghua University and his doctorate from Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States. As a returnee, his technology and products have long been certified by giants such as Google.

As of the IPO, founder Liu Sheng, together with 7 persons acting in concert, holds a total of 8.56% of Eoptolink's shares, making him the second largest shareholder. This win-win model of "listed company providing capital + founder operating the business" jointly created this cross-cycle business miracle. So much so that in some popular discussions, when a netizen asked "What would happen if you bought Eoptolink 10 years ago", all the replies in the comment section were unanimous: you would make a staggering 400 times profit.

Successfully Raised HK$53.4 Billion, The Largest IPO on Hong Kong Stock Market This Year Has Arrived

This Hong Kong listing is not only an expansion of Eoptolink's capital territory, but also a "declaration" for its full march into the global core supply chain of AI computing power.

As the largest IPO on Hong Kong's stock market this year, Eoptolink raised HK$53.4 billion this time. In addition to the support of top cornerstone investors, the rare joint participation of two internet giants Alibaba and Tencent, which each subscribed for USD 50 million, further reflects the strategic emphasis and deep binding of downstream cloud manufacturers on the core optical interconnection supply chain.

After this "ammunition" of about HK$53.4 billion arrives, the company plans to invest about 35% of the funds in R&D of optical interconnection products, focusing on tackling cutting-edge technologies such as 3.2T optical modules, co-packaged optics (CPO) and near-packaged optics (NPO); about 30% will be used to expand global production capacity, with the goal of increasing the annual production capacity from about 40 million units to about 90 million units by 2029, of which more than 80% will be the production capacity of high-speed products of 1.6T and above.

In addition, part of the funds will also be used for strategic acquisitions and investments along the optical communication value chain, as well as to enhance supply chain resilience.

Behind this huge capital expenditure is the impressive performance of Eoptolink breaking out in the AI boom. The prospectus shows that the company is in a period of high-speed growth: from 2023 to 2025, its revenue soared from RMB 10.718 billion to RMB 38.24 billion, tripling in just 3 years with a compound annual growth rate of nearly 90%; in 2026, this growth momentum further accelerated, and it achieved a quarterly revenue of RMB 19.496 billion and a net profit of RMB 5.735 billion in the first quarter alone, with the quarterly profit exceeding half of the full-year level of 2024.

At the same time, with the large-scale delivery of 1.6T high-speed optical modules and the increase in penetration rate of silicon optical solutions, the company also revealed that the comprehensive gross profit margin in the first quarter of 2026 climbed to 45.5%, with significantly improved profitability.

According to the disassembly and estimation of Nvidia Blackwell architecture's bill of materials by institutions, Eoptolink's share in Nvidia's 1.6T optical module procurement has reached 80% at present. At the same time, Nvidia's demand for 1.6T optical modules in 2026 is expected to exceed 10 million units, and Eoptolink, as a core supplier, will take up a large proportion of the order volume.

However, under the high prosperity, structural "hidden dangers" also exist objectively. In the prospectus, Eoptolink stated that customer structure and geopolitical risks are the top concerns. Data shows that the revenue from the top five customers of the company accounted for as high as 81.9% in the first quarter of 2026, and almost all of these customers are overseas. Among them, the largest single customer accounts for as high as 25.1%, and the business is highly dependent on the capital expenditure of North American computing power.

What is more noteworthy is that the company's revenue from the US market accounted for as high as 61.7% in the first quarter of 2026, while the domestic revenue only accounted for 3.7%. Although the company is trying to hedge uncertainties by building factories overseas and other methods, the potential risks of international trade policies and export control still cannot be ignored.

The Leap From "Traditional Manufacturing" to AI "Shovel Seller"

In fact, the reason why Eoptolink has attracted attention lies in that under the explosion of AI computing power, Eoptolink, as a core supplier of optical interconnection, has realized the leap from "traditional manufacturing" to AI "shovel seller".

Looking back on history, although Wang Weixiu paid out of his own pocket and invested RMB 2.8 billion to acquire Suzhou Xuchuang in 2016, the company's performance saw immediate results: in 2017, Eoptolink's revenue reached RMB 2.36 billion, a year-on-year surge of 1690.82%, and the non-recurring net profit attributable to parent company also soared to RMB 162 million, up 15 times year on year. However, in the market environment at that time, Eoptolink never obtained capital premium.

It was not until the birth of ChatGPT in 2023 that Eoptolink really ushered in its own "highlight moment". With the exponential growth of computing power demand, the company's market value went straight to RMB 800 billion, becoming a rare 10-fold bull stock that year; later in 2024, its market value strongly broke through the trillion mark, firmly sitting in the leading position of the optical module track.

What is more remarkable is that in 2025, the intraday market value of Eoptolink peaked at more than RMB 1.5 trillion, with the share price standing at RMB 1300; up to now, Eoptolink's share price is hovering around RMB 1100, becoming the 10th RMB 1000-share stock in the history of A-share market; at the same time, it is also the first company in the global optical module industry with a market value exceeding one trillion yuan. Since then, Eoptolink has completely completed the leap from "traditional manufacturing" to AI "shovel seller".

However, what really supports this trillion market value myth is not simply the favorable trend of the times, but the hard core barriers of its underlying technology. An AI industry insider admitted that in the super cluster of 10,000-card AI interconnection, optical modules are far more than simple physical assembly, but the "gearbox" and "transmission shaft" that determine the efficiency of computing power.

When the transmission rate jumps from 400G to 800G and even 1.6T, the problems of signal integrity, heat dissipation and power consumption are all amplified exponentially, which requires enterprises to master high-frequency and high-speed circuit design, precision optical coupling and complex temperature control algorithms. In addition, the access certification cycle for high-end optical modules by US cloud manufacturers usually lasts 6 to 18 months, and enterprises must pass tens of thousands of strict tests - including scenarios such as reliability, high temperature, long-term computing power load, as well as the yield and consistency of large-scale delivery, all of which are key assessment indicators.

The reason why Eoptolink can deeply bind overseas giants such as Nvidia and Google and become the leader in the optical module track is precisely this underlying strength from "traditional machinery" to "precision optoelectronic manufacturing", which has built three layers of barriers covering technical generation gap, mass production capacity and long-term customer certification.

Nowadays, as global AI capital expenditure is expected to soar from USD 0.9 trillion in 2021-2025 to USD 6.1 trillion in 2026-2030, Eoptolink's journey to the peak has just begun. What it represents is not only the perfect transformation of Eoptolink, the leading optical module manufacturer, but also the global breakthrough of China's manufacturing industry in the AI era.

This article is from the WeChat official account "ChinaVenture", author: Chen Mei, published with authorization from 36Kr.