Kunlunxin

Kunlunxin designs AI accelerators for data-centre training and inference, originating as Baidu's internal chip team in 2011-2012 and spun out as a separate company in April 2021. Baidu retains roughly 59% but the company has outside shareholders including CPE, IDG Capital, Legend Capital, BYD and China Mobile, and sells to external customers such as China Mobile, China Merchants Bank and Tencent. It has shipped multiple accelerator generations in volume and filed confidentially for a Hong Kong IPO on 1 January 2026.

Ecosystem functionBaidu's captive silicon programme turned merchant vendor, and the clearest test of whether a Chinese hyperscaler's in-house chip unit can stand alone in public markets.

Business modelAI accelerator sales