Shanghai-based artificial intelligence chip start-up MetaX has stepped into the spotlight after winning approval last week from Shanghai’s exchange to list on the city’s Nasdaq-style Star Market, underscoring both China’s accelerating AI investment and its potential to challenge US chip giant Nvidia.

Known in Chinese as Muxi, MetaX was founded in 2020 by three veterans of US chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) – chairman Chen Weiliang and co-chief technology officers Peng Li and Yang Jian. The company runs research and development centres across Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuhan and Changsha.

While MetaX has cleared a key regulatory hurdle by passing the exchange’s hearing, it still requires final approval from the China Securities Regulatory Commission before it can proceed to a listing.

As a fabless chip designer, MetaX designs microchips but does not manufacture them. The company produces N-series graphics processing units (GPUs) for AI inference, C-series chips for general-purpose computing and G-series processors for graphics rendering.

It has also built its own computing platform, MXMACA, designed to be compatible with mainstream GPU ecosystems such as Nvidia’s CUDA.

The firm’s latest flagship general-purpose processor, the MetaX C600, launched in July. It integrates HBM3e high-bandwidth memory and supports FP8 precision, a format that allows faster AI model training with lower power use. Featuring 144GB of memory, the chip is described as “fully domestically produced”, with mass production targeted for year-end.