AITO Car's entire model series delivered 34,320 units in May
On its first day of trading, MiniMax’s stock was thrown into the shark tank. It closed down over 15%, marking the largest single-day decline since its IPO. The scene is rather ironic—a company hailed as one of the starry “Six Tigers of AI,” boasting high valuations, staged a dramatic “high opening, low closing” act in Hong Kong’s stock market, where narratives are never in short supply. This sobering blow may have burst the tender valuation bubble between AI’s primary and secondary markets more
Analysis
On its first day of trading, MiniMax’s stock was thrown into the shark tank. It closed down over 15%, marking the largest single-day decline since its IPO. The scene is rather ironic—a company hailed as one of the starry “Six Tigers of AI,” boasting high valuations, staged a dramatic “high opening, low closing” act in Hong Kong’s stock market, where narratives are never in short supply. This sobering blow may have burst the tender valuation bubble between AI’s primary and secondary markets more starkly than any financial report ever could.
The market’s response is straightforward: it isn’t buying it. It doesn’t care about the AGI blueprint painted on your PowerPoint, nor does it pay much attention to the number of big-tech shareholders backing you. What it cares about is whether your current technology can clearly and sustainably convert into tangible cash flow. MiniMax’s story is certainly seductive—multimodal, role-playing, global reach—but after a round of market euphoria, investors are now crunching the numbers. Its decline signals that the market’s patience for pure “concept-driven” AI companies is running out fast. For startups still wearing “parameter scale” and “funding amount” as badges of honor, it’s time to come down from the clouds and back to earth.
Interestingly, almost on the same day, another piece of news quietly circulated: Zhipu AI and MiniMax, both veteran star unicorns, are seriously considering the path of “returning to the A-share market.” While facing a cold reception in Hong Kong, they harbor fantasies about the A-share market’s “STAR Market.” This forms a scene of magical realism in China’s AI large-model race. Why the urgency? Because with the ebbing of U.S. dollar funds and inverted valuations, the A-share STAR Market—particularly sections favorable to hard tech and narratives of self-reliance—has become a new, possibly already crowded, “safe haven.” But this feels more like a strategic reallocation of capital structure than a fundamental victory in technology. Returning to the A-share market—will that solve the problem of insufficient self-sustaining capability? Not necessarily. It may just mean switching to a stage that is more accepting of “stories” but equally demanding of localized implementation.
Looking across the entire AI sector, one side faces a chilly IPO environment, while the other flaunts staggering valuations. A figure of $26 billion has propped up an “all-Chinese” AI programming company, setting the global “valuation ceiling” for the sector. This number is like a lighthouse, illuminating the ambitions of all entrepreneurs, but it might also scorch investors’ eyes. AI programming is indeed one of the few fields where efficiency gains—and even willingness to pay—can be quickly realized. Yet the $26 billion valuation likely includes some premature payment for “sector monopoly.” When giants (Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s suite) start integrating AI programming as a standard feature into existing ecosystems, does this independent company’s moat really run that deep? A massive valuation is both ammunition and a shackle.
Zooming out, the market’s temperature is diverging. The Hang Seng Tech Index rose, with auto stocks surging—Leapmotor, NIO, XPeng all in the green. AITO (问界) itself delivered 34,000 units in a single month, a month-on-month surge of nearly 50%. This may seem unrelated to AI large models, but it’s closely linked. Smart vehicles, especially the “Huawei ecosystem” model represented by AITO, are one of the grandest and most complex landing scenarios for AI technology. AITO’s strength is less a victory of automotive products and more a demonstration of a “united front in the tech world.” It proves that when top-tier AI capabilities (autonomous driving, intelligent cockpit) combine with world-class supply chains, channels, and brand momentum, the explosive power is formidable for traditional automakers to counter. This may be one of the most solid footnotes for AI commercialization today—not showing off isolated technical prowess, but deeply embedding into a high-value, strongly ecosystemic, complex product.
Thus, today’s information mosaic paints a clear, tension-filled panorama of the industry: technological frenzy is receding, and commercial rationality is accelerating its return. The capital market no longer pays for mere concepts; it has begun scrutinizing every AI company’s “survival capability” and “integration capability.” Should one face the cold valuation interrogation in Hong Kong, or return to the A-share market to tell another “domestic substitution” story? Should one pursue the solitary peak of a $26 billion valuation, or, like AITO, willingly become the sharpest spearhead within a vast ecosystem? None of these paths is easy.
MiniMax’s plunge is not the final act but the halftime whistle. It reminds all participants: the AI marathon has never been about who shouts the loudest at the start, but about who can stay healthy and reach the next checkpoint on the long, resource-scarce track.
Disclaimer: The above content is generated by AI and is for reference only.