Artificial intelligence

Chinese AI firms dominate Hong Kong IPOs with $22 billion in exits, while US tech listings lag amid investor skepticism.

China’s artificial intelligence companies are driving a sharp divergence in global IPO markets, dominating first-quarter listings in Hong Kong and outpacing U.S. tech peers as investor sentiment fractures across regions.

Consider the trend: Chinese AI firms listed in Hong Kong accounted for four of the largest public listings in the first quarter. According to new data from PitchBook, these companies — Z.ai, MiniMax, Biren Technology and Iluvatar CoreX Semiconductor — collectively helped drive more than $22 billion in AI-related exit value during the quarter.

Adding Edge Medical, a surgical robotics company, brings the total for all five Chinese listings to over $24 billion.

The performance stands in sharp contrast to the muted reception many U.S. technology IPOs have faced. Investors have grown increasingly skeptical of richly valued software companies amid concerns that AI could disrupt traditional software business models.

“It’s genuinely a confluence of factors rather than any single driver,” Harrison Rolfes, senior research analyst at PitchBook, told Global Finance. “The DeepSeek moment in early 2025 fundamentally shifted investor perception of Chinese AI capability, and that rerating carried momentum into these listings.”

Rolfes said geopolitical considerations also played a major role, creating what he described as a “national champion premium” among investors in Hong Kong and broader Asian markets.

“Structurally, these companies came to market at more digestible valuations relative to their growth profiles compared to U.S. tech IPOs, which have repeatedly disappointed at high entry multiples,” he said.

Investor enthusiasm surrounding Chinese AI firms has emerged as U.S. IPO performance deteriorates.

A Record Stretch of IPO Underperformance

According to PitchBook data, the median U.S. IPO has underperformed its benchmark by 42 percentage points within 120 days of listing over the trailing 12 months.

“That’s historically the worst stretch in our dataset,” Rolfes said.

PitchBook noted that 2025 already represented a record low, with median IPOs trailing benchmarks by 35.6 percentage points after 120 days. Early 2026 listings are performing even worse, according to the report.

The closest comparison, Rolfes said, was the post-boom correction in 2021, when median U.S. IPOs lagged their benchmarks by 32 percentage points following aggressive pricing during the .

Globally, the median venture capital-backed IPO has underperformed the Morningstar U.S. Market Broad Growth Extended Index—a broad U.S. equity benchmark—by nearly seven percentage points over the past year. In the U.S., the index as a growth-stock yardstick shows that the gap widens sharply to 42 percentage points within 120 days of listing.

Roughly 66% of companies that have gone public since the start of 2025 are currently trading below their IPO prices, PitchBook found.

“The deterioration is progressive, suggesting that initial pricing optimism is giving way to fundamental reassessment as lockup expirations approach and more information reaches the market,” according to the May 5 report.

The divergence in performance has been particularly stark among high-profile tech listings.

SaaSpocalypse to Blame?

CoreWeave, based in Livingston, New Jersey, saw its shares nearly triple since its debut as investor demand for AI computing infrastructure accelerated. But many other venture-backed listings have struggled—badly.

Among the U.S.-listed laggards are shares of eToro, down 45.2%; Netskope, down 61%; Klarna, down 67.1%; Figma, down 85.7%; and Gemini Space Station, down 86.3%.

PitchBook said broader public SaaS markets have also weakened as investors increasingly treat AI as a threat to incumbent software firms rather than a growth catalyst.

“Public markets appear to be treating AI not as a tailwind for existing software but as a displacement risk, which many are calling a ‘SaaSpocalypse,’ in which incumbents are repriced downward even as private AI unicorns command record valuations,” according to the report.

For investors, the divergence raises questions about whether U.S.-listed AI companies still offer the best risk-adjusted exposure to the global AI boom.

“The companies leading Hong Kong’s surge — semiconductor designers, applied AI platforms and robotics-adjacent businesses — are generating real revenue with defensible vertical positioning, and they have outperformed their U.S. counterparts by a wide margin,” Rolfes said.

What’s Next?

Expect investors to take a closer look at how heavily their portfolios are tilted toward specific geographies, considering AI-related valuation premiums are persisting longer in Hong Kong than in New York.

Rolfes also cautioned that some of the highest-valued Chinese AI names could eventually face corrections. Still, the underlying businesses are stronger than many Western investors have assumed, he argued.

“The broader takeaway,” he said, “is that Chinese AI has likely graduated from a risk to monitor to a market to understand.”

Tan Su Shan, CEO and director of DBS Group—winner of this year’s Best Bank in Asia-Pacific—discusses the benefit of AI investments.

As global banks navigate trade fragmentation, AI disruption and volatile markets, DBS continues to distinguish itself through strong profitability and an aggressive technology strategy.

In this conversation with Deputy CEO Tan Su Shan, the bank’s leadership discusses how DBS surpassed $100 billion in market capitalization, scaled AI across hundreds of use cases and positioned itself to benefit from shifting intra-Asia trade flows.

Tan also outlines the challenges posed by tariffs, foreign-exchange swings and the accelerating evolution of generative and agentic AI as DBS looks toward 2026.

Global Finance: What factors shaped your bank’s performance in 2025?

Tan Su Shan: We delivered a solid financial performance in 2025, reflecting the resilience of our diversified franchise. Our total income and profit before tax hit new highs of S$22.9 billion ($18 billion) and S$13.1 billion, respectively. Return on equity  (ROE) was 16.2%, within our medium-term target and several percentage points above our local and global peers.

A big part of our success was being well-positioned to capture structural growth opportunities arising from the shifting macro landscape, including rising intra-Asia trade and investment flows, as well as new trade and supply corridors between Asia and other regions such as Europe.

GF: What role did Al play in that performance? 

Tan: We aim to sustain our leadership as an AI-enabled bank with a heart, using technology to deliver a competitive advantage while creating tangible impact for customers.

We have industrialized AI at scale, deploying more than 430 use cases—four times 2021 levels—powered by over 2,000 sophisticated models. These have delivered measurable outcomes, including stronger risk management, improved controls, and productivity gains. In 2025, our data analytics and AI/ML initiatives generated approximately S$1 billion in economic value.

Building on this foundation, we are embedding Gen AI and Agentic AI into customer journeys and internal workflows. Horizontal capabilities such as our DBS-GPT proprietary generative AI platform provide role-based access to millions of internal documents, accelerating decision-making and problem-solving. Vertical solutions such as DBS Joy, our Gen AI-enabled chatbot, deliver always-on, high-quality customer support at scale, improving customer satisfaction by 23% while handling more than 235,000 AI-powered interactions. Together, these capabilities lift productivity, decision quality, and customer experience by combining machine intelligence with human judgment.

GF: Which milestones did DBS reach in 2025? 

Tan: It was a landmark year for DBS, notwithstanding global volatility, and the market’s confidence in our franchise has never been clearer. We surpassed the $100 billion market capitalization milestone in June and closed the year at $124 billion, cementing our position among the top 25 banks globally.

Moving ahead, we remain focused on building a resilient, growth-oriented, and future-ready market leader, anchored by our three strategic moats of trust, data, and culture.

GF: What was 2025’s greatest challenge for DBS?

Tan: Undoubtedly, our greatest challenge was the onset of tariffs following Liberation Day and the market volatility that followed. When you layer on headwinds from interest rates and significant FX fluctuations, you create a perfect storm we had to navigate. Despite these pressures, DBS delivered a solid financial performance. We achieved this by being proactive with our balance sheet hedging, securing record deposit inflows, and maintaining a sharp, strategic focus on high-ROE businesses such as wealth management.

At the same time, technology continued to move at a breathtaking pace, especially with the rapid shift toward Gen AI and Agentic AI. Fortunately, we weren’t starting from scratch, as we have been working with AI for more than a decade. Our early and sustained investments in data and technology gave us the robust foundation needed to industrialize AI across hundreds of meaningful use cases, positioning us to move quickly as the techno-logy evolves.

GF: Does 2026 present new challenges?

Tan: Our strategic priorities remain intact, and in 2026, we will continue leveraging our core strengths—what we term the “4 Ds”: Dependable, Diversifier, Digital, and Disruptor—to be a beacon of stability for our customers amid heightened volatility.

We have embarked on our vision to become an AI-enabled bank with a heart, transforming our operating models, leveraging machine intelligence, and preserving human empathy to reinforce the trust customers place in us. We will continue scaling our structural growth engines, which remain relevant even in a more bifurcated world.

This includes prioritizing growth in high-ROE businesses such as wealth management, transaction services, financial institutions group, and treasury customer sales. We also remain focused on our six core markets in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, India, Taiwan, China, and Indonesia) and on building connectivity between our Western and Asian clients. Strengthening resilience across every organizational layer remains a key, ongoing priority.