Last Thursday local time, the US stock exchange Broadcom released its latest financial report that exceeded market expectations and saw a sharp rise in stock prices. Today, several computing chip stocks in the A-share market also saw a surge in stock prices.
In the fiscal year 2024, Broadcom's artificial intelligence revenue increased by 220%, reaching $12.2 billion. On Friday local time, Broadcom's stock price rose by 24.43%, with a market value exceeding $1 trillion. Part of Broadcom's artificial intelligence revenue growth comes from Ethernet network components, and in addition, Broadcom has collaborated with three large cloud vendors to develop customized AI chips. Customized or application specific integrated circuits, also known as ASICs, differ from general-purpose GPUs (graphics processors) in AI scenarios.
Affected by the news, many computing chip stocks with rising stock prices in A-shares today are also related to ASIC or other specialized AI chips.
During today's trading session, Cambrian rose 1.57%, Yuntianli Frisbee rose 9.08%, Zhaoyi Innovation rose 3.22%, Xinyuan Stock rose 3.96%, Canxin Stock rose 1.55%, Broadcom Integrated rose 8.84%, Aibulu rose 3.84%, and Kede Education rose 20.03%.
From the perspective of its main business, Cambricon specializes in designing chips for the field of artificial intelligence. Its main products include hardware such as cloud intelligent chips, as well as IP authorization and software; Yuntian Lifei adopts ASIP (Customized Instruction Set Processing Chip) architecture, targeting edge AI scenarios, with two core technology platforms: algorithms and chips, and a neural network processor on the chip; Zhaoyi Innovation is a manufacturer of memory and MCU, which can be used for AI products; Xinyuan Corporation is a one-stop chip customization service and semiconductor IP authorization service provider. The company's NPU (Neural Network Processor) IP is used in multiple AI chips; Canxin Co., Ltd. is an integrated circuit design manufacturer that provides one-stop chip customization services, customizing ASIC and other chips; Broadcom Integrated is an integrated circuit design company that provides wireless communication RF chips and solutions.
Some companies have recently discussed the progress in the field of AI. Xinyuan Corporation stated in a previous investor exchange event that the company claims to have customized software and hardware chip platform solutions for artificial intelligence applications based on its own IP, covering real-time online lightweight space computing devices such as smartwatches and AR/VR glasses, as well as high-efficiency end side computing devices such as AI PCs, AI phones, smart cars, robots, and high-performance cloud side computing devices such as data centers/servers. More than 100 million AI chips integrated with the company's NPU IP have been shipped. It is understood that NPU chip is a type of ASIC chip.
During a recent investor relations event, Yuntian Lifei stated that the trend of AI applications gradually shifting from cloud based models to the edge side is becoming increasingly clear. The company's Deep Edge series inference cards have been adapted to nearly ten mainstream models, including Yuntian Tianshu, Tongyi Qianwen, Baichuan Intelligence, and Llama 2/3.
In October, Broadcom Integrated announced on the investor interaction platform that the company has achieved mass production and sales of multiple AIoT chip products that integrate AI technology, and will further increase research and development investment in AI algorithms in the future.
However, according to reporters' analysis, the main business of some individual stocks was not originally AI chips, but through investment and participation in ASIC chip companies related to AI, and the participation in chip companies has not yet brought significant returns. Among them, Aibulu is an environmental governance manufacturer, and Kede Education is an education manufacturer. Both listed companies have invested in chip manufacturer Zhonghao Xinying.
It is reported that Zhonghao Xinying claims to be the only company in China that has mastered the core technology of TPU (Tensor Processor) architecture AI chips. The company has independently developed high-performance TPU AI chips designed specifically for AI large models, and has also launched support for 1024 chips; span data-height=& quot;& amp; quot;  class=& quot; spro yb ser1& quot;& Taize is a large-scale AI computing cluster that efficiently interconnects between chips and can support models with over 100 billion parameters. TPU chip is also a type of ASIC chip.
From the perspective of shareholding ratio, according to the announcement in April 2023, Kede Education plans to invest 130 million yuan to increase capital and acquire equity in Zhonghao Xinying. After the transaction is completed, Kede Education will hold 8.3791% equity in Zhonghao Xinying. In September of this year, Aibulu announced that its controlling subsidiary would invest 250 million yuan to increase its capital in Zhonghao Xinying. After the transaction was completed, Aibulu will directly hold 7.6923% equity in Zhonghao Xinying.
Holding Zhonghao Xinying shares has not significantly changed the business structure of these two companies. Aibulu's main business is environmental governance engineering and operations. In the first three quarters of this year, Aibulu incurred a loss of 33.53 million yuan, with a year-on-year decrease of 24.14% in revenue. In the first half of this year, Kede Education's main business includes vocational and full-time school services, as well as high gloss, high wear-resistant, and fast drying glossy offset printing ink services. Zhonghao Xinying is not included in the consolidated financial statements of Kede Education. Its equity investment in Zhonghao Xinying is accounted for as a long-term equity investment. In the first six months of this year, Kede Education recognized an investment loss of 6.4017 million yuan based on its profit according to the investment ratio. Zhonghao Xinying's income will be recognized in the second half of the year.
It is worth noting that Aibulu's announcement also indicates that although Zhonghao Xinying is one of the few AI chip companies in China that has mastered the core technology of TPU training and inference integrated architecture, it still faces technical route risks. The artificial intelligence computing power center relies on the support of high-performance chips. Although ASICs such as TPU are specialized chips for machine learning and artificial intelligence customization, the chip ecosystem is not as mature as GPUs.
From the situation in the first three quarters of this year, some computing chip stocks have seen an increase in revenue, but there are still some that have not achieved profitability. In the first three quarters of this year, Zhaoyi Innovation's revenue and net profit were 5.65 billion yuan and 830 million yuan, respectively, an increase of 28.56% and 91.87% year-on-year; In the first three quarters, Yuntian Lifei's revenue was 483 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 112.52%, with a net profit loss of 425 million yuan; In the first three quarters, Xinyuan's revenue decreased by 6.5% year-on-year, with a loss of 396 million yuan; In the first three quarters, Canxin's revenue and net profit decreased by 14.16% and 41.76% year-on-year, respectively; In the first three quarters, Broadcom's integrated revenue increased by 10.7% year-on-year, with a net profit loss of 34.05 million yuan; The net profit of Cambrian in the first three quarters was a loss of 724 million yuan.