The AI boom in the Hong Kong stock market has been blazing from before the holiday until after, and in this carnival, MiniMax and Zhiyu are undoubtedly the most dazzling protagonists.

On February 20, the first trading day of the Lunar New Year in the Hong Kong stock market, the stock prices of the domestic AI large model "Gemini" surged. By the close, Zhiyu soared by 42.72%, reaching HKD 725 per share; MiniMax also rose over 14%, closing at HKD 970 per share, with the market values of both companies breaking through HKD 300 billion.

What does HKD 300 billion mean? For comparison, the current market value of JD.com is about HKD 294.584 billion, which means that these two AI companies, established for less than ten years, have quietly surpassed the market value of established internet giants that have been operating for over twenty years.

The wealth creation effect of AI is indeed astonishing.

Stock prices doubled over two months

The stock price myth of MiniMax and Zhiyu did not begin with the Spring Festival, but rather hinted from the moment of their listing. As one of the first domestic AI large model enterprises to list in Hong Kong, both companies have embarked on a spectacular rising trend since their inception.

First, let's look at Zhiyu. As the "world's first large model stock," Zhiyu officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 8, 2026, with an issue price of HKD 116.2 per share, and it greeted its listing with a "red opening," pushing its market value to HKD 57.89 billion. Notably, during the public offer phase before its listing, it garnered nearly 1160 times oversubscription, indicating the market enthusiasm.

After the listing, Zhiyu's stock price steadily increased. Especially entering February, the mysterious anonymous model "Pony Alpha" became a sensation in overseas communities, and market rumors claimed that this model was the new generation large model GLM-5 that Zhiyu was about to release. Stimulated by this news, Zhiyu's stock price entered a "rocket" mode, with a cumulative maximum increase exceeding 110% in just four trading days from February 9 to 12.

On February 12, Zhiyu officially open-sourced the new flagship model GLM-5, announcing on the same day an increase in the GLM Coding Plan subscription price, with an overall increase starting from 30%. The very next trading day, the company's stock price surged by 20.65%. By February 20, the first trading day of the Year of the Horse, Zhiyu rose 42.72%, adding HKD 96.7 billion to its market value in a single day, equivalent to the market value of a Bilibili.

In just 43 days since its listing, Zhiyu's stock price has risen more than 524%, with a market value reaching HKD 323.24 billion.

In comparison, MiniMax's performance on its first day of listing was even more impressive. On January 9, MiniMax listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, closing with a surge of 109.09%, at a stock price of HKD 345, directly pushing its market value to HKD 106.7 billion.

Since February, MiniMax's stock price has risen alongside the AI sector, increasing from HKD 515 per share on February 9 to HKD 970 per share on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year, with a nearly 90% rise in just over ten days, exponentially increasing by 4.88 times from the issue price of HKD 165, and its market value rising from HKD 106.7 billion on its first day of listing to HKD 304.23 billion.

It is worth mentioning that on February 13, MiniMax officially announced the launch of the new generation text model MiniMax M2.5, which the market generally believes is also an important catalyst for its sustained stock price strength.

From the initial "red opening" on the first day of listing to stock price increases exceeding 4 times, the capital market debuts of Zhiyu and MiniMax can be described as perfect. Moreover, the strong performance of both companies in the Hong Kong stock market not only allows secondary market investors to reap significant profits but also leads to a super payout for the company's employee stock ownership plans.

According to the previous prospectus, both companies launched employee stock ownership plans before their listings, with Zhiyu's employee ownership rate reaching 51.2%, and MiniMax having nearly all employees as shareholders. Based on the current market value, a considerable number of core employees have achieved "financial freedom" through their stock ownership.

Investors reap a red opening at the beginning of the year

Of course, compared to retail investors who "buy new" in the secondary market and employee shareholders, the primary market investment institutions that have accompanied the company since its inception are the most notable beneficiaries of this wealth feast.

Let's start with Zhiyu. Zhiyu originated from the technology transfer of the Computer Science Department of Tsinghua University, founded in 1996 as the Tsinghua University Knowledge Engineering (KEG) lab. The key figure, Chief Scientist Tang Jie, is from this lab and had led the development of China's first trillion-parameter open-source large model "Wu Dao 2.0," and designed the GLM series model architecture, promoting the autonomy of domestic large model technology.

CEO Zhang Peng graduated from the Computer Science Department of Tsinghua University, being a leading doctoral graduate, while Chairman Liu Debing previously served as Deputy Director of the Technology Big Data Research Center at the Tsinghua Data Science Institute.

With the dual backgrounds of "Tsinghua system" and "scientist entrepreneurship," Zhiyu has been closely watched by capital since its inception, quickly becoming a "star project" in the primary market.

According to CVSource from Zhongjin Jia Chuan, before its listing, Zhiyu had cumulatively received investment from over 50 institutions. These include VC/PE institutions such as Zhongke Chuangxing, Dacheng Caizhi, Junlian Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Today Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Shunwei Capital, Sequoia China, Hillhouse, Yunhui Capital, and CMB International, as well as industrial capital from Meituan, Ant Group, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, among others, and local state-owned assets from Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Tianjin, Hangzhou, etc.

Currently, the aforementioned institutions that have not exited are still in the lock-up period, but based on current stock prices, their paper profits are quite considerable.

The returns for early investors are particularly astonishing. At its founding in 2019, Zhiyu received a 40 million yuan angel round financing from Zhongke Chuangxing, with a post-investment valuation of 375 million yuan. As of now, Zhongke Chuangxing still holds about 1.34% of Zhiyu's shares, and as the company's market value has climbed to HKD 323.24 billion, the value of its holdings has reached HKD 4.33 billion.

Now, let’s look at MiniMax. In early 2022, the former Vice President of SenseTime, Yan Junjie, resolutely gave up his options and resigned to start MiniMax just before SenseTime's IPO, focusing on the development of multi-modal models.

Over the past three years, the company has also gathered an impressive lineup of top-tier investors, including leading financial investors such as Hillhouse, IDG, Sequoia, Matrix, Mingshi, and China Life, as well as industrial investors including miHoYo, Alibaba, Tencent, and Xiaohongshu.

Among them, Hillhouse, miHoYo, Yunqi Capital, and IDG were the earliest angel round investors, with a post-investment valuation of 200 million USD (equivalent to 1.38 billion RMB), and based on the closing price on February 20, the returns for these institutions from entering at the angel round exceed a hundredfold.

When the lock-up periods for both companies expire, these institutions will usher in real harvest moments.

AI large model, simultaneously opening the "money-making" mode

In fact, the skyrocketing stock prices of MiniMax and Zhiyu are just a microcosm of the recent AI large model track in the capital market, and the financing stories occurring in the primary market are equally noteworthy.

The earliest news comes from Moonlight Dark Side. On December 31, Moonlight Dark Side announced the completion of a USD 500 million Series C financing, led by IDG, with old shareholders such as Alibaba and Tencent oversubscribing, with a post-investment valuation of USD 4.3 billion.

Then on January 26, 2026, Jieyue Xingchen announced the completion of over 5 billion RMB in Series B+ financing, with investors including the National Investment Fund, China Life Equity, Pudong Venture Capital, Xuhui Capital, Wuxi Liangxi Fund, Xiamen International Trade, and Huajin Technology, with Tencent, Qiming Venture Partners, and Wuyuan further participating.

This financing also broke the record for the largest single financing in the Chinese large model track in the last 12 months.

The heat has not dissipated. Just recently on February 17, media reported that Moonlight Dark Side's new round of over USD 700 million financing is about to close, led by old shareholders like Alibaba, Tencent, Wuyuan, and Jiua, with the latest valuation breaking USD 10 billion.

In addition, Baichuan Intelligent, another one of the "six small AI large models," also released a signal of capitalization during this period, with the company expected to initiate an IPO in 2027.

In just three months, massive financing news has followed one after another, driven by breakthroughs in technology and the prospect of commercialization leading to a revaluation of capital.

As an early investor in Zhiyu, Zhongke Chuangxing stated that the current capabilities of large models are experiencing an unprecedented leap, breaking through the critical points of "usable" to "good to use" in key areas such as language, multi-modality, video, code, and tool invocation, indicating that a significant large model bonus window has opened.

However, it can be anticipated that as competition heats up, future funding and resources will accelerate concentration towards a few leading companies.