Cambricon Technologies, a leading developer of AI processors in China, has achieved its first-ever quarterly profit in late 2024, marking a significant financial milestone for the company.

The revenue of Cambricon Technologies surged nearly 70% in 2024, reaching approximately ¥1.2 billion ($163.7 million). This growth can be attributed to the increased demand for the company's AI processors in China, especially after the U.S. government banned the sale of Nvidia's advanced AI GPUs to the People's Republic.

Cambricon's stock on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s Star Market has also seen a remarkable rise, skyrocketing by over 470% in the past year. This surge in stock value is a testament to the company's growing market presence and the high demand for its products.

Cambricon offers a range of AI accelerators based on the MLU instruction set architecture, which are used for both training and inference. Their most powerful product, the MLU290-M5 accelerator, boasts impressive performance figures, but it is still several years behind Nvidia in terms of technology. Despite this, Cambricon's offerings are attractive to customers who cannot access Nvidia GPUs.

With its financial performance improving and the demand for AI hardware exploding in China, Cambricon is well-positioned to capitalize on this growth and solidify its position as a key player in the Chinese AI market.