A Chinese genius makes a fortune of $23 billion from artificial intelligence!

 

Billionaires and fortunes

A Chinese genius makes a fortune of $23 billion from artificial intelligence!

Just six years ago, Chen Tianshi's name was hardly a household name in the business world. The man, born in the Chinese city of Nanchang, led a startup specializing in artificial intelligence chips , almost entirely dependent on the telecommunications giant Huawei, which accounted for more than 95% of its revenue. But in 2019, this dependence abruptly collapsed when Huawei decided to develop its own chips.
What seemed like a fatal crisis turned into a golden opportunity thanks to an American decision. As Washington tightened its restrictions on China's access to advanced chips, Beijing rushed to adopt a "Made in China" policy and provide a safety net for its domestic companies. This equation made Chen one of the world's richest men, with a fortune of $22.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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Legendary leap in the market

Shares in his company, Cambricon Technologies, which specializes in designing artificial intelligence chips, have surged by more than 765% in two years, driven by increased domestic demand following the ban on US chips. With a 28% stake in the company, his wealth has more than doubled since the beginning of the year, making him the third richest person in the world under the age of 40, after the heirs of Walmart and Red Bull.
Chen's story reflects China's shift from suppressing private-sector giants to cultivating a new generation of state-linked tech elites. With Washington choking off chip supplies, companies like Cambricon have become "national heroes," protected by government policies and investor enthusiasm—a scenario that raises questions about the sustainability of this rise.
This comes despite warnings from some analysts that the company's valuation may be overestimated. Shen Meng, director of investment bank Shansun, says: "The current growth is due to a low-level start and may not be sustainable without strong government support."

Fierce competition with Western giants

Although Chen's wealth still falls far short of that of Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, his company benefited from Beijing's decision last August to reduce its reliance on Nvidia processors, particularly in government projects. However, Cambricon itself cautioned investors against excessive optimism, emphasizing the continued impact of US sanctions and the difficulty of catching up with Western technology.
Even with the launch of the "Siyuan 690" chip, experts believe that the company is years behind Nvidia products, which have a complex software system that is difficult to imitate quickly.

A genius journey from the lab to the top

Chen was born in 1985 to a modest family and displayed remarkable intelligence from a young age. He joined a gifted student program at the University of Science and Technology of China and received his PhD in computer science in 2010. Afterwards, he worked with his brother at the Institute of Computing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where their research on the DianNao processor came to the fore in 2014, before they founded Cambercon in 2016.
The company’s first breakthrough came in 2017 through a partnership with Huawei to develop its smartphones, but the road was not paved with roses; in 2022 Washington placed it on the list of banned entities, accusing it of supporting the modernization of the Chinese army.

Explosive local demand

US sanctions created a gap in the market, prompting Beijing to require companies to purchase local chips, which led to a more than 500% jump in Cambercon's revenues in one year, despite fierce competition from Huawei and other startups such as Moore Threads and MetaX, which are preparing to list their shares, in addition to plans by companies such as Biren Technology and Iluvata CoreX to list in Hong Kong.
Despite this boom, experts warn of sharp fluctuations in chip company stock prices, with expectations inflated about the size of the infrastructure required to run artificial intelligence models.