On February 3, the capital market showed a rare moment of confusion in recent times. At the noon market break, the share price of domestic chip company Cambrian fell by 12.88%, and its market value dropped from approximately 530 billion yuan to 456.3 billion yuan. More than 70 billion yuan was evaporated in half a day. Previously, a market rumor that had not been circulated stated that Cambrian’s 2026 revenue guidance given in small-scale exchanges was only 20 billion yuan, which was far lower than market expectations of 30 billion to 50 billion yuan.

Just a few days ago, Cambrian just released the most eye-catching performance forecast in history, and the contrast caught investors off guard.

On the occasion of the plunge, Cambrian issued a solemn statement rarely and quickly: "The company has never organized any small-scale exchanges recently, and has not issued any annual or quarterly operating income guidance data."

flash crash

On February 3, 2026, Cambrian's stock price fell rapidly after opening, and the market suddenly became uneasy. During the morning trading session, the stock price fell below the 1,200 yuan and 1,100 yuan integer marks one after another.

As of the midday break, the decline had reached 12.88%, the market value had evaporated by more than 70 billion yuan, and the total market value had fallen back to about 450 billion yuan.

After the 2025 performance forecast was released last Friday night, the stock price began to fall on Monday. Market sentiment is clearly changing.

A screenshot of performance guidance began to circulate in investment circles. Rumor has it that Cambrian gave a forecast of 20 billion yuan in revenue in 2026 in a small-scale communication.

This figure is far lower than the market consensus of 30 billion to 50 billion yuan. For Cambrian, whose revenue just exceeded the 6 billion yuan mark last year, the forecast of 20 billion yuan means that the growth rate will slow down significantly.

At noon on February 3, Cambrian issued a solemn statement through its official WeChat public account: "The company has never organized any small-scale exchanges recently, and has not issued any annual or quarterly operating income guidance data."


At the same time, the staff of the Cambrian Secretary-General's Office also responded: "We are not sure about this (referring to the reason for the stock price fluctuation). First of all, there are many rumors in the market, which must be false."

The company also emphasized that there are many fluctuations in funds and emotions in the secondary market and called on investors to treat it rationally.

But in the eyes of many people, Cambrian's plunge has spread to the entire domestic AI chip sector. During the session, Moore Thread fell by more than 4%, Haiguang Information fell by more than 2%, and Muxi shares also fell by more than 5%.

Looking at longer-term background changes, the domestic AI chip industry is currently facing a realistic turning point: this is not only a golden period for industry development, but also the starting point for intensified competition.

Currently, except for the top-ranked AI chip, which accounts for half of the market share, the remaining market share is divided up by more than 10 companies including Haiguang Information, Baidu Kunlun Core, Cambrian, and Moore Thread.

Judging from Cambrian and the newly revealed Zhenwu, a subsidiary of Alibaba, some major technology companies will seize the opportunity to develop self-developed AI chips in the future and accelerate their commercialization in the market. According to market news, the Zhenwu 810E, a subsidiary of Alibaba, has just been exposed.The performance can exceed NVIDIA A800 and mainstream domestic GPUs, and is equivalent to NVIDIA H20. It can be used for AI training, AI reasoning and autonomous driving.Even the ecological barriers raised by Alibaba based on cloud, large models and chips have more advantages, which means that market competition will become increasingly fierce. With the official listing of Kunlun Core, Pingtouge, etc., the era of scarcity of related concept stocks in the stock market will also end.

Just delivered the best performance

Just four days before the plunge, Cambrian had just released its 2025 annual performance forecast. Data shows that the company expects to achieve annual operating income of 6 billion to 7 billion yuan, a significant year-on-year increase of 410.87% to 496.02%.

What is even more striking is that the net profit attributable to the parent company is expected to be 1.85 billion to 2.15 billion yuan, compared with a loss of 452 million yuan in the same period in 2024, and the company has achieved an annual turnaround from losses to profits.

In the announcement, the company attributed its performance growth to the continued rise in demand for computing power in the artificial intelligence industry, as well as the improvement of product competitiveness and the continued expansion of the market.

However, Cambrian's fourth-quarter performance does mean to cool down. According to Cambrian's third quarter report for 2025, the company has achieved operating income of 4.607 billion yuan and net profit attributable to the parent company of 1.605 billion yuan in the first three quarters.

This means that the revenue in the fourth quarter of 2025 is expected to be only between 1.393 billion yuan and 2.393 billion yuan, and the net profit is expected to be between 245 million yuan and 545 million yuan.

Even if compared with the upper limit of 2.393 billion yuan, the quarter-on-quarter growth in single-quarter revenue in the fourth quarter is relatively limited; and the upper limit of the net profit forecast is 545 million yuan, even slightly lower than the 567 million yuan in the third quarter.

In addition, companies such as Moore Thread and Muxi Co., Ltd. have also just released performance forecasts.Moore Threads expects revenue in 2025 to be 1.45 billion yuan to 1.52 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 230.7% to 246.67%; Muxi Shares expects revenue to be 1.6 billion to 1.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 115.32% to 128.78%.

Still, the market remains concerned about the losses of these companies. Muxi Shares expects a loss of 650 million yuan to 798 million yuan in 2025, and the loss in the fourth quarter of last year may be close to or even exceed the total of the first three quarters.

“Investors please improve their ability to discern information,” Cambrian said in its response amid the puzzling market sentiment. Judging from the data, investors are re-evaluating the valuation logic of AI chip companies.

The financing balances of Muxi Shares, Moore Threads and Cambrian account for 9.55%, 8.26% and 2.89% of the circulating market value respectively (data as of February 2). These financings may intensify the decline in stock prices when the market fluctuates.

Investors are beginning to pay attention to a core question: when more than 10 AI chip companies go public, how many will be able to achieve success? Will half of them be eliminated and their market value drop off a cliff?

As of press time, Cambrian's stock price has rebounded, eventually closing down 9.18%.

There are more and more participants on the domestic AI chip table, but the trial and error space and time left to them in the market is rapidly narrowing, and the competition is still ongoing.