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Jun Yan

A listing path is not a valuation endorsement. China’s artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics companies are about to find out which parts of their private market premiums can survive public market pricing.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange has clarified how unprofitable AI large-model companies can apply under the Star Market’s fifth listing standard. The route is meant for companies with strategic technology that might not yet be reaping profits or substantial revenue.
A parallel test is taking shape in robotics. Unitree Robotics has moved further through the Star Market process, giving investors a more concrete test case for humanoid robots. Unlike many early-stage tech companies, Unitree is not only selling a promise. It has reported fast revenue growth and profits, though more recent filings point to pressure on margins.
These two cases are not the same – that is why they matter together. The AI guidance tests whether strategic tech companies can access public capital before reaching conventional financial maturity. Unitree tests whether a high-growth robotics company can carry the expectations built into China’s humanoid robot boom into a stock-market setting.
Both point to a larger shift. Public markets do not merely provide exit routes for early investors. They create categories, comparables and discipline.
That is what private markets should watch. In the recent funding cycle, China’s AI and robotics companies have raised money on the basis of capability: product performance, chip access, policy relevance and founder reputation. Those signals can support a funding round. They do not determine a public market multiple.


Once public comparables exist, they travel backwards into private markets. Late-stage investors get a public-market benchmark. Boards have to justify valuation marks. Some companies might find that the initial public offering window does not lift their valuation; it narrows the gap between private-market storytelling and public-market evidence.
Public investors will ask a narrower question. Which part of the company deserves a technology valuation, and which part should be priced like services, hardware or project delivery?
The problem is loose classification rather than false revenue. A service business with a recurring revenue model is not the same as an IT company with an AI model. A robot integrated into factory workflows is not the same as a robot sold for testing, branding or research. Strategic importance does not automatically create software economics.
Hong Kong offers a useful reminder. Its Chapter 18C regime separates specialist tech companies by commercial maturity. Early public market access requires classification before valuation. AI companies considering the Shanghai route face a sharper pricing test: “large-scale application” may signal progress while concealing weak monetisation, heavy customisation or broad but shallow usage.


Robotics faces a similar problem. Are customers buying units for testing and display or integrating robots into production, inspection and logistics workflows? Does each deployment reduce the company’s delivery burden or create another engineering project? Scalability can reside in the model, robot, customer base or policy label. Only some of these support the valuation usually attached to scalable tech companies.
This is where some private market premiums become vulnerable. A high valuation often assumes revenue will grow faster than costs. In many enterprise technology markets, the opposite happens for longer than founders and investors expect. Each major customer can require new data handling practices, safety checks, system integration and workflow redesign.
A company is not truly scaling if every new customer forces it to rebuild its project and delivery process. It might still be growing, but it is growing like a project-based company, not a scalable technology platform.
A big AI contract might impress private investors. A spectacular robot demonstration might excite the public. Public markets will ask how much of either is repeatable.


The answer to this question will decide whether companies are valued as software platforms, industrial automation suppliers, specialised equipment makers, systems integrators or policy-backed strategic assets. These categories do not carry the same multiples. They also do not reward the same management capabilities.
That is the harder lesson for China’s hard-tech boom. Fundraising can move faster than organisational learning. Policy labels can move faster than customer repeatability. Demonstrations can move faster than deployment discipline. Public markets eventually close that gap.
The strongest Chinese tech companies will not be those with the most elegant fundraising language. Instead, they will be those that can show lower marginal delivery costs as customers grow, improving gross margins as usage rises and contracts do not require the company to reinvent itself for every client.
The next chapter in China’s technology has been narrated through model ranking, chip access, robot performance and policy support. The public-market story will be written in revenue structure, margin progression and organisational learning. Some companies will keep their premiums. Others will discover that what private markets priced as technology may look more like services, hardware or project delivery under public market scrutiny.


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Opinion

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Public markets will not be swayed by a single big contract or impressive demonstration and will demand more of tech firms aiming for IPOs


Public markets will not be swayed by a single big contract or impressive demonstration and will demand more of tech firms aiming for IPOs.


Artificial intelligence (AI)

Robotics

Technology

China stock market

China

Unitree Robotics

Shanghai Gold Exchange

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


Why China’s tech firms could be in for a rude IPO surprise

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Public markets will not be swayed by a single big contract or impressive demonstration and will demand more of tech firms aiming for IPOs

Public markets will not be swayed by a single big contract or impressive demonstration and will demand more of tech firms aiming for IPOs