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GigaDevice Semiconductor Prices Hong Kong IPO at Top End, Raises $600 Million

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China’s GigaDevice Semiconductor said on Friday it has set the offer price for its Hong Kong listing at HK$162 per H share, the top end of its marketed range, raising HK$4.68 billion ($600.4 million), according to an exchange filing.

The Shanghai-listed chipmaker had earlier marketed the shares within a price range of HK$132 to HK$162 per H share and disclosed last week that it would offer about 28.9 million H shares in the deal. The final pricing reflects strong investor demand for Chinese semiconductor and artificial intelligence-related stocks.

GigaDevice’s Hong Kong debut comes amid a surge in fundraising by Chinese tech companies in the city, as Beijing encourages domestic champions in AI and semiconductors to tap capital markets. Hong Kong has re-emerged as the world’s leading IPO venue, driven by regulatory adjustments and pent-up demand from issuers after years of tighter oversight on the mainland.

According to LSEG data, companies raised around $37.2 billion from 115 new listings in Hong Kong last year, the highest level since 2021. Investor appetite has been underlined by the strong performance of recent debuts, including MiniMax Group, whose shares doubled in value on their first day of trading on Friday.

Another semiconductor firm, OmniVision Integrated Circuits, is also set to begin trading in Hong Kong next week following a secondary offering.

GigaDevice said it expects its H shares to start trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 13.

Czech Government Bans Use of Chinese AI Startup DeepSeek in Public Administration

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The Czech government has prohibited all use of services from Chinese AI startup DeepSeek within the country’s public administration, citing data security concerns, Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced on Wednesday. The decision aligns with similar restrictions imposed by Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands due to fears about data protection.

Fiala explained that DeepSeek, as a Chinese company, is legally required to cooperate with Chinese authorities, potentially granting Beijing access to data stored on the company’s servers in China. This risk prompted the government to ban DeepSeek’s AI products, applications, websites, and web services from official public use.

DeepSeek and the Chinese embassy in Prague have not yet responded to requests for comment. The startup made headlines earlier this year by claiming to offer a low-cost AI model competing with U.S. firms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, concerns have grown in both the U.S. and Europe over DeepSeek’s handling of personal data.

DeepSeek’s privacy policy indicates that it stores user data, including AI requests and uploaded files, on Chinese servers, intensifying worries about user privacy and data security.

Huawei’s AI Lab Denies Copying Alibaba’s Qwen Model Amid Copyright Claims

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Huawei’s AI research division, Noah Ark Lab, has denied allegations that its Pangu Pro Moe (Mixture of Experts) large language model copied from Alibaba’s Qwen 2.5 14B model. The lab insisted on Saturday that Pangu Pro was independently developed and trained, refuting claims made in a report by an entity named HonestAGI.

HonestAGI published a paper on GitHub claiming “extraordinary correlation” between Huawei’s Pangu Pro Moe and Alibaba’s Qwen model, suggesting that Huawei’s model might have been “upcycled” rather than trained from scratch. The report also raised concerns about potential copyright violations and false claims regarding Huawei’s investment in the model’s training.

In response, Noah Ark Lab stated that their model is not based on incremental training from other manufacturers’ models but instead includes key innovations in architecture and technical features. They highlighted that Pangu Pro is the first large-scale model built entirely on Huawei’s Ascend chips and confirmed adherence to open-source licensing rules for any third-party code used—though they did not specify which open-source models influenced their work.

Alibaba has yet to comment on the allegations, and the identity of HonestAGI remains unknown. The controversy comes amid rising competition in China’s AI sector, which has been accelerated by the release of open-source models like DeepSeek’s R1 and Alibaba’s Qwen family, designed for consumer and chatbot applications. In contrast, Huawei’s Pangu models are primarily applied in government, finance, and manufacturing sectors.