When a financial center’s lobbies start to fill up again, there’s a subtle confidence that comes back. These days, you can practically feel it when you stroll through Central in Hong Kong on a weekday morning: bankers making their way to the same buildings, founders arriving by plane from Shenzhen for roadshow meetings, and elevators in the IFC running ten or fifteen minutes behind schedule. That sentiment is supported by actual numbers. The Hong Kong Stock Exchange held 40 initial public offerings (IPOs) in the first quarter of 2026, collectively raising HK$110 billion—the most since mid-2021.
Artificial intelligence is almost always the driver. Zhipu AI and MiniMax, members of what are referred to as China’s “AI tigers” locally, are the two best-performing debuts of the year and have increased by more than 400% since pricing. In January, AI chip designer Iluvatar CoreX joined the boards. Fourier Semiconductor and Edge Medical came next. Watching the tape every day gives the impression that Hong Kong is now operating as a primary market rather than a backup one. That would have sounded a little unrealistic five years ago. It sounds like a description of the current situation.
The actual diversity of the listings is what’s intriguing. The pipeline is wider than the coverage implies, but the headlines tend to favor generative AI startups because those are the names that readers in other countries are familiar with. Prospectuses have been filed by robotics companies, manufacturers of medical devices, semiconductor toolmakers, and even a small number of enterprise software companies. About twenty AI-related businesses were already lined up, according to HKEX’s confirmation earlier this year. There are currently more than 500 pending applications overall. If nothing else builds up behind it, it will take years to clear that backlog. Investors appear to think that nothing more will be required to maintain the momentum. That presumption might or might not be true.
Beijing’s involvement in all of this is more nuanced than the rally implies. In an attempt to prevent what regulators refer to as “low-quality” issuers from flooding the queue, Chinese authorities have been subtly tightening regulations on so-called red-chip listings—companies incorporated abroad but primarily operating on the mainland—for the entire year. Early in April, the Financial Times reported that this scrutiny was already determining which companies could proceed. Before pursuing its own listing, Moonshot AI, one of the most prominent names in the AI cohort, has been reorganizing to adhere to the new framework. Beijing’s message is unabated. Slow down, take care of yourself, and return stronger.
It is difficult to dispute the appeal for international asset managers. Hong Kong is in a unique position that no other financial hub can match: it operates under a legal and disclosure framework that foreign investors can actually read, while still being close enough to the mainland to access the policy and supply-chain context. Now that Washington’s relationship with Chinese tech listings has cooled, it’s difficult to ignore how important this is. There is simply nowhere else for some of China’s most ambitious AI companies to go that makes financial sense. Almost by default, the address is now Hong Kong.
Whether this lead lasts the entire year is still up in the air. The global IPO crown could swiftly return to New York if American AI behemoths like OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX choose to go public. By any honest measure, the rally in companies like Zhipu and MiniMax also appears frothy; gains of 400% seldom end smoothly. The speed of the boom and the maturity of the companies propelling it are at odds beneath the surface. For the time being, however, the city is fulfilling the role of financial centers when an industry requires a stage. One was constructed in Hong Kong, and the audience has turned out.
