(Yicai) March 13 -- Cambricon Technologies, a maker of artificial intelligence chips often labelled China’s “little Nvidia,” made its first ever annual profit last year.

Net profit was CNY2.1 billion (USD300 million) in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, compared with a net loss of CNY455.8 million (USD66.1 million) the year before, the Beijing-based company’s financial statement showed yesterday. Revenue surged more than five times to CNY6.5 billion.

Cambricon, founded in 2016 by brothers Chen Yunji and Chen Tianshi, has benefited from soaring demand for computing power across the artificial intelligence sector amid China’s push to reduce reliance on foreign AI chips.

The global AI industry entered a rapid growth phase last year, Cambricon noted. Leveraging its advancements in AI chip products, foundational software platforms, and cluster software tools, the company's products were deployed at scale across several key industries, including telecoms, finance, and the internet, it said.

Cambricon’s shares [SHA: 688256] closed 0.3 percent down at CNY1,096.10 (USD158.94) each in Shanghai today, after earlier gaining by as much as 2.6 percent. It was briefly the Chinese mainland's priciest stock last August.

Cambricon invested nearly CNY1.2 billion in research and development last year, up 9 percent from 2024, with R&D spending as a share of revenue dropping to 18 percent from 91 percent because income growth outpaced that of investment on R&D.

For the fourth quarter, net profit shrank 20 percent to CNY454.6 million, marking the second consecutive quarter-on-quarter decline, after a 17 percent drop in the third quarter. Revenue rose 9.4 percent to CNY1.9 billion.

Editor: Futura Costaglione