Chinese AI start-up founder now world’s 3rd richest under 40—how US chip curbs helped Chen Tianshi build a fortune

Chen Tianshi, co-founder of Cambricon Technologies, was not even close to being among the richest people in the world in 2019. Huawei Technologies Co., the artificial intelligence chip manufacturing company’s largest customer, had abruptly shut down nearly all of its business to produce its own semiconductors. By then, Huawei accounted for more than 95% of the company’s revenue.

After a sudden decline in a major source of revenue, Tianshi found a way to boost business due to the U.S. decision to cut off China’s access to cutting-edge chips and Beijing’s goal to boost domestic technology, according to a report by Bloomberg News.

This eventually gave the AI ​​chip maker government support and a protected market, enabling him to become one of the world’s richest self-made billionaires.

Cambricon Technologies share price

Over the past 24 months, shares of Cambricon Technologies are up more than 765%. His wealth, which comes mainly from his 28% stake in the Beijing-based AI accelerator maker, has more than doubled since the beginning of this year to $22.5 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Chen’s growth underscores China’s support for the domestic AI industry, creating a new state-affiliated tech elite shortly after cracking down on private sector giants

As Washington’s export restrictions restrict China’s access to advanced chips, companies like Chen’s Cambricon have become national leaders, buoyed by government policies and investor enthusiasm. They represent a new industrial environment where success is determined by political support rather than market competition.

Concerns over Cambricon’s growth

But questions have arisen about whether Cambricon’s rise is due to government protectionism or the competitiveness of its chips, leading to uncertainty about how long that growth will last.

“Cambricon’s explosive revenue growth is mainly driven by a low starting point, and its current valuation could be inflated without sustained policy support,” Shen Meng, director of Beijing-based investment bank Chanson & Co, told Bloomberg News.

Although Chen has not yet reached the net worth of Nvidia founder Jensen Huang, he is already the third richest person under 40 in the world, according to the index, behind Lukas Walton and Mark Mateschitz, heirs of Walmart and Red Bull.

Cambricon shares and Chen’s net worth rose in August after China asked domestic companies to refrain from using market leader Nvidia Corp.’s H20 processors, especially for government-related purposes.

At the same time, the company intervened to calm the investor frenzy surrounding its shares, warning in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange that the company remained under US sanctions and highlighting the difficulties of climbing the tech ladder. It also clarified rumors about products not available in the pipeline.

“It is too early to tell whether Cambricon or Huawei, China’s leading AI chip designer, will become China’s Nvidia because it is extraordinarily difficult to quickly replicate Nvidia’s full stack, including its CUDA ecosystem,” Sunny Cheung, a researcher at Washington-based think tank Jamestown Foundation, told the news portal.

While questions have been raised over Cambricon’s valuation, Chen’s journey to success has become a notable example of China’s state-backed academic pipeline, which has also contributed to the unlikely breakthrough of AI startup DeepSeek and its young founder Liang Wenfeng.

Cambricon was listed on the Shanghai Science Technology Innovation Board in 2020 but remained in the red until it began reporting quarterly profits for the first time since its IPO in the three months ending December 2024.

It faced a setback in 2022, when the US Department of Commerce listed Cambricon for its attempts to “acquire products of US origin to support China’s military modernization”, restricting the company’s access to advanced Western technologies.

But US restrictions have had a limited impact on Cambricon’s outlook. Washington created a supply gap when it expanded export controls to prevent Nvidia and AMD from selling high-performance AI chips to China. Beijing responded forcefully, requiring domestic technology firms to “buy local”; This means that Chinese companies must now source at least some of their chips from domestic manufacturers such as Huawei or Cambricon.

With increasing demand, Cambricon’s revenue has increased by more than 500% in the last 12 months, despite facing competition from Huawei and many other domestic startups.

“These spikes are driven directly by the urgent need for access to countries’ hardware infrastructure,” Shuman Ghosemajumder, co-founder and CEO of Reken, a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence startup, told Bloomberg. “Similar to Nvidia, I think they will likely face a lot of change in stock prices as people decide exactly how much infrastructure is needed for practically useful generative AI models and how overstated those expectations are,” Ghosemajumder said.

(With input from institutions.)