(Yicai) Dec. 8 -- Baidu’s shares climbed after the Chinese internet behemoth confirmed that it is considering a stock market listing for Kunlunxin Technology, its artificial intelligence chip unit.

Baidu [HKG: 9888] closed up 3.5 percent at HKD125.80 (USD16.17) per share in Hone Kong today. In pre-market trading in New York, the company’s stock [NASDAQ: BIDU] was up 3.1 percent at USD129.55 as of 5.49 a.m. local time, after adding 5.9 percent yesterday.

Baidu is looking into an initial public offering for Kunlunxin, the Beijing-based firm said in a statement yesterday following a Reuters report on the deliberations. If pursued, a spin-off and listing would be subject to regulatory approval, and there is no guarantee that it will proceed, Baidu added.

Reuters reported on Dec. 5 that Kunlunxin is planning a Hong Kong IPO, with the aim of listing by early 2027. The unit was valued at CNY21 billion (USD3 billion) after its latest funding round earlier this year, the report added, citing people familiar with the matter.

That same day, Baidu’s Hong Kong stock jumped 5 percent to HKD121.60, while its US-listed shares gained 5.9 percent to USD125.66.

Shares of Moore Threads Technology, which designs graphics processing units and is often called “China’s Nvidia,” surged more than five-fold when they began trading in Shanghai on Dec. 5 after an CNY8 billion (USD1.1 billion) IPO. Fueled by the AI boom and China’s push for chip self-sufficiency, Moore Threads successful debut helps to pave the way for other Chinese AI chip companies to go public.

Baidu, one of China’s early movers in AI, first launched its Kunlun series of chips for large language model training and inference in 2018. In June 2021, the company set up Beijing-based Kunlunxin as a standalone subsidiary to run its chip business.

Kunlunxin has 44 shareholders, including electric vehicle giant BYD and leading brokerage Citic Securities, according to corporate information platform Tianyancha. Baidu is the largest stakeholder with a 59.5 percent stake.

Kunlunxin will roll out a new generation of AI chips over the next two years, Baidu Executive Vice President Shen Dou said at the Baidu World Congress last month. The Kunlunxin M100, designed for large-scale inference workloads, is set to be released next year, while the higher-end Kunlunxin M300, built for ultra-large multimodal training and inference, should hit the market in 2027.

Editor: Kim Taylor