Hubei State-owned Assets has ushered in the largest return in its history.

This moment has been long-awaited.

Recently, the Sci-Tech Innovation Board IPO of Yangtze Memory Technologies Holding Co., Ltd. (abbreviation: YMTC Holding) has been accepted, and the official prospectus has been submitted. For this IPO, YMTC Holding plans to raise 330 billion yuan, which is about to become the largest IPO in the history of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

This means YMTC Holding is about to break the record just set by Changxin Memory Technologies.

Looking back a month ago, Changxin Memory Technologies landed on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, and its market value subsequently soared to 4 trillion yuan. Interestingly, both Changxin Memory Technologies and YMTC Holding were founded in 2016, one based in Hefei and the other located in Wuhan, collectively known as the "Twin Stars of Domestic Storage". With the successful listing of Changxin Memory Technologies, the Hefei state-owned assets behind it have reaped trillion-yuan returns.

Now, it's Wuhan's turn.

The next trillion-yuan IPO, Hubei state-owned assets wins

Let's start with the story 20 years ago.

In 2006, Hubei Province and Wuhan City invested over 10 billion yuan to establish Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd., building the first 12-inch integrated circuit production line in central China, laying a solid foundation for the subsequent development of the integrated circuit industry.

By 2015, the development of memory chips was designated as a national strategy. Then the hundred-billion-yuan National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund and local funds were established one after another, kicking off the wave of domestic production of memory chips. To break the high monopoly of overseas enterprises, Hubei was highly expected — the following year, the National Memory Base settled in Wuhan Optics Valley, and YMTC Holding was established on the basis of Wuhan Xinxin.

Since then, YMTC Holding has made rapid progress: from the first 3D NAND flash memory chip achieving a breakthrough from scratch, to the advent of the Xtacking architecture, to the successful R&D of 128-layer 3D flash memory chip... a super unicorn of memory chips has risen from Optics Valley. Calculated based on TrendForce data, from January to March 2026, YMTC Holding ranked third in the world and first in China among global NAND Flash manufacturers in terms of both sales revenue and shipment volume.

Against the backdrop of the super storage cycle driven by AI computing power, the Wuhan moment is coming — recently, the Sci-Tech Innovation Board IPO of YMTC Holding has been accepted and the official prospectus has been submitted, with a planned fundraising amount of 330 billion yuan, refreshing the historical fundraising record of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

This means YMTC Holding will surpass Changxin Memory Technologies' 295 billion yuan to become the largest IPO in the history of the Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

Some analysts predict that the future market value of YMTC Holding may be comparable to that of Changxin Memory Technologies — after listing, the market value of Changxin Memory Technologies once soared to 4 trillion yuan. A set of supporting data shows that Changxin Memory Technologies turned a profit in the first quarter of this year, with a net profit attributable to shareholders of 247.62 billion yuan; YMTC Holding performed even better, achieving operating revenue of 470.42 billion yuan and net profit attributable to shareholders of 333.79 billion yuan in the same period.

However, due to the different segmented tracks, competition patterns and product portfolios of the two, this is more of an extremely optimistic market estimate. The more common judgment at present is that the market value of YMTC Holding will exceed one trillion yuan after listing.

As YMTC Holding released its prospectus, more little-known stories behind it have come to light — the company was formerly YMTC Co., Ltd., which was jointly funded and established by Xinfei Technology, the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase I, Hubei Science & Technology Investment Group, and the National Core Fund. Among them, Xinfei Technology, Hubei Science & Technology Investment Group, and the National Core Fund are all local state-owned assets of Hubei. At that time, the assessed net asset value of the company was about 134 billion yuan.

In the following ten years, YMTC Holding rarely had public financing news, but state-owned assets at all levels in Hubei have always accompanied it. According to the prospectus, there are currently 7 shareholders holding more than 1% of the shares in YMTC Holding — Hubei Changsheng, Xinfei Technology, National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase I, National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase II, Optics Valley Industrial Investment, National Core Fund, and Yangtze River Industry Group, holding 26.54%, 25.35%, 11.97%, 11.38%, 9.25%, 5.90% and 2.53% of the shares respectively.

Five of them have Hubei state-owned asset backgrounds — after equity penetration, the largest shareholder Hubei Changsheng is wholly owned by the state-owned assets at three levels of Hubei Province, Wuhan City, and Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone; Xinfei Technology is jointly funded by Hubei state-owned assets and the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund; Optics Valley Industrial Investment is a professional industrial investment platform of Wuhan East Lake High-tech Development Zone; behind the National Core Fund are also state-owned assets at all levels in Hubei; Yangtze River Industry Group is 100% controlled by Hubei Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

Ten years of companionship leads to today's counterattack. Calculated based on the trillion-yuan market value of YMTC Holding after listing, the corresponding market value of the shares held by Hubei state-owned asset system will exceed hundreds of billions of yuan, which can be called the most touching scene of industrial cultivation.

Wuhan is booming, a large number of top-performing stocks are emerging

Barring any accidents, YMTC Holding will become the first listed company with a market value of trillion yuan in Hubei.

This year, many eyes are focused on Hubei and Wuhan. Just like the widely circulated "Seven Stars of Optics Valley" not long ago — YMTC Holding, Yangtze Optical Fibre and Cable, Huagong Tech, Accelink Technologies, FiberHome Technologies, Guide Infrared, and CICT Mobile all rose this year, becoming a true portrayal of the explosion of Wuhan's optical communication industry.

Among them, the market value of Huagong Tech exceeds 100 billion yuan, and state-owned assets also play an important role behind it. Back in 2020, in order to further seize development opportunities, Huagong Tech decided to carry out the school-enterprise separation reform, and transferred part of the company's shares through agreement by publicly soliciting transferees.

Soon, Guoheng Fund was shortlisted. Looking at its shareholder camp — Wuhan Guochuang Innovation Investment Co., Ltd., Wuhan Industrial Development Fund Co., Ltd. and other Wuhan capitals gathered. According to the transaction details, Guoheng Fund acquired 19% of the shares of Huagong Tech held by Huazhong University of Science and Technology Industrial Group for a consideration of about 4.291 billion yuan, becoming the largest shareholder of Huagong Tech, and the actual controller of the latter was simultaneously changed to Wuhan Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

At that time, Huagong Tech had not yet released its hard technology growth potential, and its market value was only at the level of 20 to 30 billion yuan, but Wuhan state-owned assets still firmly chose to enter the market.

Now the market value of Huagong Tech exceeds 100 billion yuan, which also brings a rich return for the original insistence — calculated based on the 19% shares held by Guoheng Fund, the corresponding market value of this part of equity has exceeded 19 billion yuan at present. Roughly estimated, Wuhan state-owned assets' acquisition of Huagong Tech has a book floating profit of 15 billion yuan.

From YMTC Holding to Huagong Tech, the core of the story is the same: the local state-owned assets firmly placed bets at the trough and accompanied for a long time, and finally waited for the era of hard technology explosion. According to Hubei Daily, "Over the past ten years, the provincial, municipal and district three-level state-owned assets have continued to increase investment in the storage industry, with a cumulative capital support of more than 30 billion yuan. Even if the enterprise has suffered long-term losses, the state-owned asset shareholders still continue to invest."

This companionship has also ushered in value realization. Represented by YMTC Holding, Huagong Tech, etc., Optics Valley has now gathered 16,000 optoelectronic information enterprises, the world's largest R&D and manufacturing base of optical fiber and cable, the country's largest R&D and production base of optoelectronic devices, the national advanced storage R&D and production base... all come from here.

A trillion-yuan industrial cluster is on the rise — the current total scale of Wuhan's optoelectronic information industry has exceeded 850 billion yuan. According to Wuhan's 15th Five-Year Plan, Wuhan will build two trillion-yuan clusters of optoelectronic information and life health, and promote the optoelectronic information industry to become a world-class industrial cluster.

Major reshuffling of Chinese cities

This year is a big year for IPOs, and many cities are proud of their achievements.

The most typical example is Hefei. The story of introducing BOE and NIO to achieve industrial counterattack has long been widely known to the outside world. Now, with the successful landing of Changxin Memory Technologies on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board, Hefei state-owned assets have made history again.

At present, the latest market value of Changxin Memory Technologies exceeds 3.7 trillion yuan, ranking first in the A-share market capitalization list. According to the prospectus, Qinghui Jidian, Changxin Integration, Hefei Jixin and other entities hold a total of about 45.16% of the shares of Changxin Memory Technologies before issuance, of which the Hefei state-owned asset system holds a total of about 36.79% of the shares. Calculated based on the latest market value, the corresponding market value of shares held by Hefei state-owned assets exceeds one trillion yuan.

For state-owned assets, financial returns are only secondary, and the far-reaching significance lies in the changes of the industrial ecosystem. After Changxin Memory Technologies settled in Hefei, a large number of semiconductor equipment, materials and testing enterprises supported nearby, which gradually drove the development and growth of Hefei's local industrial cluster. At present, Hefei has gathered more than 450 upstream and downstream enterprises in the integrated circuit industry, forming a full-chain industrial ecosystem covering design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, materials and equipment.

As a result, Hefei has risen — as of the close of trading on July 27, excluding Changxin Memory Technologies, the total market value of other A-share listed companies in Hefei is about 1.28 trillion yuan, ranking 19th among cities nationwide. After including Changxin Memory Technologies, the total market value of Hefei's A-share companies exceeds 4.56 trillion yuan, surpassing 15 cities including Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Tianjin in one go, rising to the 4th place in the country.

One investment changes the industrial destiny of a city, which may be an opportunity that many cities envy.

But the path is often difficult to replicate. It should be known that in the past ten years, Changxin Memory Technologies has experienced continuous large losses, and Hefei state-owned assets has always accompanied it and never withdrawn capital halfway. The same is true for YMTC Holding, which did not turn a profit until 2024. Before the value is realized, patience is needed, as well as the courage to take responsibility.

Especially for hard technology tracks such as semiconductors and advanced manufacturing, it never depends on luck. There are also Eoptolink for Suzhou, Innolight for Chengdu... all of them have withstood the test of time.

Recently, the national gross domestic product data for the first half of 2026 was released. The most notable one is that Anhui counterattacked with 27,370 billion yuan and returned to the top ten nationwide. The growth rates of Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing, Hubei and other regions are all higher than the national level. The change of urban pattern takes place in the process of industrial changes again and again.

A new round of urban reshuffling has begun. As history has repeatedly proved: one enterprise can change an industry, and one industry can change a city.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Investment Circle" (ID: pedaily2012), the author is Wu Qiong, and it is released with authorization from 36Kr.