Recently The New York Times reported the following:
Blockbuster market debuts by two technology companies
show how Beijing is turning to local investors to finance its A.I. ambitions
and reduce reliance on Wall Street.
The NYT - By Steve Lohr and Xinyun Wu - Steve Lohr reported
from Seoul and Xinyun Wu from Taipei, Taiwan. Meaghan Tobin contributed
reporting from New York.
Published Aug. 18, 2026
Updated Aug. 19, 2026, 4:02 p.m. ET
Two explosive stock market debuts in Shanghai in recent
weeks have underscored a pair of China’s intertwined ambitions: harnessing
investor enthusiasm for homegrown companies riding the artificial intelligence
boom and reducing dependence on American technology and finance.
The companies — CXMT, China’s leading memory chip maker, and Unitree Robotics, a Chinese maker of humanoid robots — both chose Shanghai to list their shares. Their offerings were encouraged by government policies aimed at steering promising tech companies toward domestic financial markets rather than relying on state subsidies or foreign capital.
They were departures from years past, when the path for successful Chinese tech start-ups so often ran through Silicon Valley and Wall Street.
“The flow of global tech capital was essentially a one-way street looking westward,” the Chinese Communist Party-controlled Global Times said in an editorial last week, citing the CXMT and Unitree initial public offerings in Shanghai as signals of a change. “Today, however, the world is shifting its gaze from West to East.”
Under Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, Beijing has pursued self-reliance across industries, including critical materials, food and many others, seeking to reduce the leverage that countries can wield over it. Nowhere is that national strategy more evident than in technology, where developing A.I. and advanced semiconductors requires staggering amounts of capital.
Increasingly, the government wants that capital to come from China. The extraordinary reception for CXMT and Unitree suggests that Chinese investors are willing to provide it.
First came CXMT, short for ChangXin Memory Technologies. Late last month, its shares soared 470 percent on the first day of trading and have climbed further since, giving the chipmaker a market value of around $545 billion and pushing it past Tencent as China’s most valuable publicly traded company.
CXMT has benefited from A.I. technology’s insatiable demand for high-speed memory chips, which are essential for storing and moving vast quantities of data. Its main domestic rival, Yangtze Memory Technologies Company, is also preparing to go public.
Then came Unitree. Its shares began trading on Wednesday in Shanghai, and surged 460 percent on its debut. At one point, the stock was up 629 percent before pulling back.
Unitree occupies a more speculative frontier of the A.I. boom. There are still doubts about how quickly a large commercial market will develop for machines that look and move like humans. But videos showcasing the feats of Unitree’s humanoid robots have attracted millions of views online: performing kung fu routines, scaling walls, doing backflips, running races and boxing. In China, the company has become a symbol of the country’s high-tech ambitions.
The blockbuster offerings point to China’s push for technological and financial self-reliance in tandem.
The Global Times, which often espouses nationalist views, argued that stronger domestic capital markets could provide Chinese technology companies with an alternative to American financing. “As technological autonomy becomes a reality,” it stated, “the domestic capital market gains a basis for reasonably valuing these companies, no longer needing to rely on ‘validation’ from overseas exchanges.”
China experts say the growing emphasis on local capital markets is an evolution in the country’s industrial policy. Beijing is seeking to rely less heavily on state subsidies, which have often proved costly and inefficient, instead leaning more on investors to decide which companies deserve capital.
Subsidies can work well in established industries, where the product is understood and the technological path relatively clear. For cutting-edge technologies, they can be less effective.
“They work badly at the frontier, where nobody knows which approach wins and they tend to prop up firms that should fail,” said Gerard DiPippo, a director at the Eurasia Group, a research group in Washington.
Domestic capital markets and investors, Mr. DiPippo said, will increasingly be relied on as “a better way to discipline growing tech firms.”
The government’s role is becoming more like a referee and champion of Chinese capital markets. But it still gets involved directly on occasion, acting like a venture capitalist.
(to be continued)
Translation
中國希望本土科技龍頭企業在國內融資（1/2）
兩家科技公司在股市的驚人亮相表明，北京正轉向本土投資者，為其人工智能雄心壯志提供資金，並減少對華爾街的依賴。
近幾週，上海兩家公司在股市的爆炸性上市凸顯了中國兩項相互交織的雄心：一方面，利用投資者對本土人工智能公司蓬勃發展的熱情；另一方面，減少對美國技術和金融的依賴。
這兩家公司 - 分別是中國領先的記憶體晶片製造商長信儲存 (CXMT) 和中國人形機器人製造商宇樹科技（Unitree Robotics）- 都選擇在上海上市。政府政策鼓勵它們的上市旨在使科技公司向國內金融市場融資，而不是依賴國家補貼或外資。
這與過去幾年截然不同，過去中國科技新創企業的成功之路往往要經過矽谷和華爾街。
中共控制的《環球時報》上週在一篇社論中指出:「全球科技資本的流動基本上是一條單行道，流向西方」; 「然而，今天世界正將目光從西方轉向東方」。並現以上海CXMT和Unitree的首次公開募股為例，認為這是轉變的信號。
在中國最高領導人習近平的領導下，北京在包括關鍵材料、食品等在內的各行業推行自力更生，力求減少其他國家對中國的影響力。這項國家策略在科技領域體現得尤為明顯，人工智能和先進半導體的研發需要龐大資金。
政府越來越希望這些資金來自中國。長信儲存 (CXMT) 和宇樹科技 (Unitree) 的上市反應異常熱烈，顯示中國投資者願意為其提供資金支持。
首先是長信儲存，全名為長信儲存技術有限公司。上月底，該公司股票在上市首日飆升 470%，此後股價持續攀升，使其市值達到約 5,450 億美元，超越騰訊，成為中國市值最高的上市公司。
長信儲存受益於人工智能技術對高速儲存晶片的巨大需求，這些晶片對於儲存和傳輸大量資料至關重要。其主要國內競爭對手長江儲存技術有限公司 也正準備上市。
隨後是宇樹科技。該公司股票於週三在上海上市，首日股價飆漲 460%。股價一度上漲 629%，之後又有所回落。
宇樹科技在人工智能熱潮中佔據了更具投機性的前端地位。人們仍然懷疑外形和動作都與人類相似的機器能否迅速發展出龐大的商業市場。但展示宇樹科技人形機器人精彩表演的影片已在網絡上吸引了數百萬的點擊量：它們表演功夫、攀爬牆壁、後空翻、賽跑和拳擊。在中國，該公司已成為國家高科技野心的象徵。
這些轟動一時的產品表明，中國正致力於同時實現技術和金融的自力更生。
經常發表民族主義觀點的《環球時報》認為，更強大的國內資本市場可以為中國科技公司提供美國融資以外的另一種選擇。該報指出：“隨著技術自主成為現實，國內資本市場將擁有合理評估這些公司價值的基礎，不再需要依賴海外交易所的‘認可’。”
中國問題專家表示，對本土資本市場的日益重視是中國產業政策演變的體現。北京正尋求減少對國家補貼的依賴，因為補貼往往成本高且效率低下，現在轉而更依賴投資者來決定哪些公司值得獲得資金。
補貼在成熟產業中可能效果顯著，因為這些產業的產品已被充分理解，技術發展路徑也相對清晰。但對於開創技術而言，補貼的效果可能較差。。
華盛頓研究機構歐亞集團 的董事 Gerard DiPippo 表示:「在開創技術領域，補貼的作用很差，因為沒有人知道哪種方法最終會勝出，而且補貼往往會扶持那些本應失敗的公司」。
DiPippo先生指出，國內資本市場和投資者將日益成為「去規範發展中科技公司的更有效途徑」。
政府的角色正變得越來越像中國資本市場的裁判和領導者。但它仍然會不時直接介入，扮演創投家的角色。
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