Alibaba said late Tuesday that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange will allow it to spin off its semiconductor subsidiary T-Head, clearing the way for a separate listing of the chip designer. The company said it plans a public offering of T-Head shares in Hong Kong, subject to approval from the exchange and the China Securities Regulatory Commission.
The announcement gave no date or proposed size for the offering. Alibaba said it had already filed confidentially on Sept. 11 to list T-Head on the Hong Kong exchange.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba traded about 1% lower Wednesday morning and are down roughly 29% so far this year.
T-Head designs chips that compete with Nvidia’s products in artificial intelligence, and the unit has become more important to Alibaba as Beijing pushes for domestic alternatives to U.S. silicon. In late September, Alibaba announced its next-generation AI chip, the Zhenwu V900, saying it delivers three times the performance of its predecessor, the Zhenwu M890, which was released in May.
Alibaba is one of several Chinese companies, including Huawei, developing homegrown semiconductors to power artificial intelligence as U.S. restrictions on China’s access to advanced chips tighten.
Short seller allegations
Short seller Culper Research alleged in May that Alibaba was able to obtain restricted Nvidia chips by indirectly financing entities in Southeast Asia.
Coverage of an alleged affair between Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and a Chinese national described as a spy, said to be connected to one of those entities, has weighed on Nvidia’s shares, which dropped to their lowest valuation since late March and dragged on the wider U.S. stock market.
Anthropic sets IPO terms amid volatility
Against that backdrop of volatility in technology stocks, U.S. AI developer Anthropic said in an updated filing Tuesday that it will offer 825 million shares in its upcoming initial public offering at a price range of $70 to $78 per share. Trading on the Nasdaq is expected to begin on Nov. 19, according to people familiar with the details, who were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Chinese tech listings under pressure
Chinese technology stocks have underperformed their U.S. peers, despite investor enthusiasm last year over AI breakthroughs by DeepSeek. Baidu has reportedly delayed the listing of its AI chip unit Kunlunxin, and Chinese memory chip maker YMTC has also reportedly pushed back its offering, according to news reports this month.
Over the past few months, China’s financial regulators have stepped up scrutiny of technology IPOs and of the surge of capital flowing into the sector, adding uncertainty to spin-off plans such as T-Head’s.