DeepSeek plans stock market listing in Shanghai

Chinese AI company DeepSeek has commissioned investment bank CITIC Securities to prepare for an initial public offering, according to a report by news agency Reuters.

The listing is to take place on Shanghai's STAR Market, the segment for technology companies on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Reuters cites two people familiar with the matter.

The process is to begin later this year, according to the report.

The path to the stock market

Companies seeking a listing on mainland China typically must first appoint a securities firm to accompany the application and submit it to regulatory authorities.

CITIC Securities is among China's largest investment banks and has supported numerous technology companies through capital market transactions in recent years. The STAR Market was deliberately created in 2019 to enable Chinese high-tech companies access to capital, similar to Nasdaq in the United States.

A concrete timetable for the initial listing has not been announced so far. Information about the targeted issue volume or company valuation is also not available. DeepSeek itself has not yet publicly commented on the report.

DeepSeek as a market phenomenon

DeepSeek from Hangzhou attracted international attention in early 2025 when the company demonstrated with its language model R1 that powerful AI systems can be trained with significantly less computational effort than at established US competitors such as OpenAI.

The announcement temporarily triggered share price losses in chip and technology stocks on international exchanges, as investors questioned the multi-billion dollar investment plans of large US tech companies.

Since then, DeepSeek has established itself as one of the most well-known names in China's AI industry, alongside companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, or Moonshot AI. An initial public offering would provide the company with fresh capital for research and infrastructure while at the same time offering insight into the valuation investors currently attribute to the company.

Significance of the STAR Market

Since its founding, the STAR Market in Shanghai has developed into an important tool of Chinese industrial policy to provide domestic semiconductor, biotech, and AI companies with access to capital without requiring them to list abroad.

For European investors and companies, a DeepSeek initial public offering is primarily of indirect significance.

European chip manufacturers such as Dutch company ASML, whose lithography systems are also used by Chinese semiconductor companies, as well as cloud providers and software companies in Austria and Germany that experiment with or compete against Chinese AI models, closely monitor the capital equipment of Chinese AI providers.

Better financing for DeepSeek could further increase the pace of innovation in cost-effective AI models, with which European software companies and start-ups must currently compete for market share.

Source: TechNode | Original Article