Visionary Leaders
They measure the business empire from the commanding heights of the era.
Chen Tianshi
“The mission of AI chips is to make intelligence within reach, and we must be the enablers in the intelligent era.”
When I was 16 years old, I entered a junior class. I was so addicted to games that I almost repeated the grade. After working hard for 5 years in a 30-square-meter "small black room", he made the first AI chip. Huawei cut off supplies, suffered losses of 5.4 billion in eight years, and was sanctioned by the United States. In 2025, Cambrian’s revenue was 6.497 billion, and its market value once exceeded Moutai. Chen Tianshi: The cold bench has finally warmed up. In August 2025, the “King of Stocks” in the Chinese stock market changed hands. The market value of an AI chip company called Cambrian once surpassed Kweichow Moutai, which symbolizes value investment. The founder of this company, Chen Tianshi, was a "student scumbag" in the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China 24 years ago because he was addicted to "StarCraft" and almost repeated the grade. He had to rely on "drawing lots" to decide the direction of his life. From a confused teenager on the verge of repeating a grade to the leader of China's AI chips; from the darkest moment when the market value plummeted 84% to the top of the A-share "King of Stocks". Chen Tianshi spent twenty years and only did one thing: take a "cold bench" that no one was optimistic about and sit on it until it is hot. 1. Teenager: The "stupid" years of a genius In 1985, Chen Tianshi was born in a scholarly family in Nanchang, Jiangxi. His elder brother Chen Yunji was extremely talented. He was admitted to the Youth Class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 14 and showed his talent in the computer field early. In 2001, 16-year-old Chen Tianshi followed in his elder brother's footsteps and was also admitted to the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China. After entering the juvenile class, Chen Tianshi, who was freed from the constraints of his family, fell into gaming and devoted a long time to "StarCraft". He did not invest enough in his studies, and his grades fell in many courses. He was once faced with repeating a grade in school. After a period of confusion, he found it difficult to determine
Chen Tianshi
Asia Cover Person｜Chen Tianshi: After sitting on the bench for 20 years, he made Cambrian have a market value exceeding Moutai
Asia's "Cover Man" Magazine·Pattern
Total Issue 055-ACF-2026
【Abstract】
When I was 16 years old, I entered a junior class. I was so addicted to games that I almost repeated the grade. After working hard for 5 years in a 30-square-meter "small black room", he made the first AI chip. Huawei cut off supplies, suffered losses of 5.4 billion in eight years, and was sanctioned by the United States. In 2025, Cambrian’s revenue was 6.497 billion, and its market value once exceeded Moutai. Chen Tianshi: The cold bench has finally warmed up.
In August 2025, the “King of Stocks” in the Chinese stock market changed hands. The market value of an AI chip company called Cambrian once surpassed Kweichow Moutai, which symbolizes value investment.
The founder of this company, Chen Tianshi, was a "student scumbag" in the junior class of the University of Science and Technology of China 24 years ago because he was addicted to "StarCraft" and almost repeated the grade. He had to rely on "drawing lots" to decide the direction of his life.
From a confused teenager on the verge of repeating a grade to the leader of China's AI chips; from the darkest moment when the market value plummeted 84% to the top of the A-share "King of Stocks".
Chen Tianshi spent twenty years and only did one thing: take a "cold bench" that no one was optimistic about and sit on it until it is hot.
1. Youth: The “scumbag” years of a genius
In 1985, Chen Tianshi was born in a scholarly family in Nanchang, Jiangxi. His elder brother Chen Yunji was extremely talented. He was admitted to the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 14 and showed his talent in the computer field early on. In 2001, 16-year-old Chen Tianshi followed in his elder brother's footsteps and was also admitted to the Junior Class of the University of Science and Technology of China.
After entering the juvenile class, Chen Tianshi, who was freed from the constraints of his family, fell into gaming and devoted a long time to "StarCraft". He did not invest enough in his studies, and his grades fell in many courses. He was once faced with repeating a grade in school. After a period of confusion, it was difficult for him to determine the professional direction for further study. He finally used the method of drawing lots to select the tracks, randomly selected the computer major from pieces of paper with different professional names written on it. This random choice became the starting point of his career for the next twenty years.
The young man who was regarded by others as an outstanding talent also had a trough of neglecting his studies. An accidental decision finally anchored a main line of China's AI chip industry.
Geniuses also have moments of confusion. But he used lots to draw the future of China's AI chips.
The first person on the bench was chosen by himself.
2. Scientific research: 30 square meters of “little black room”
In 2010, Chen Tianshi and his brother Chen Yunji entered the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for intensive research. At that time, the global AI industry had not yet formed a large scale, and there were no mature AI-specific chip implementation cases in the industry. Most of the relevant research and development ideas remained at the theoretical stage.
In the same year, the two brothers took the lead in proposing the idea of a dedicated deep learning processor. This idea lacked feasibility in the eyes of most practitioners in the industry, and evaluations tended to be conservative and skeptical. The team does not have large special funds or mature external technical references. The R&D team of 20 people has been crowded in a small office of 30 square meters for a long time to carry out deduction, simulation and verification work.
Looking back at the deserted environment in the initial stage, Chen Tianshi objectively described the state of the industry at that time: "When we first started making AI chips, this field was not hot at all - first of all, AI was not hot; making a dedicated chip for AI was even less hot."
After several years of continuous hard work, in 2014, the team's related paper won the ASPLOS Best Paper Award, establishing a complete theoretical framework for dedicated AI chips; in 2015, the world's first deep learning processor prototype chip successfully completed tape-out, and the core technology in the laboratory stage was implemented. Long-term accumulation in a small space laid the entire technical foundation for subsequent entrepreneurship.
30 square meters, 20 people, 5 years. In his "little dark room", he planted the seeds of China's AI chips.
After sitting on the bench for 5 years, the first flower bloomed.
3. Entrepreneurship: Huawei’s supply cutoff and the pain of “weaning”
In 2016, Chen Tianshi resigned from the Institute of Computing Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and founded Cambrian. The company's initial registered capital was only 900,000 yuan. The brand name is taken from the geological era of the Cambrian explosion of life, and it places expectations on the domestic AI chip technology to usher in an industrial explosion.
In 2017, Huawei released the Kirin 970 terminal processor, which integrates the Cambrian 1A deep learning processor. This is also the world's first mobile phone main chip equipped with a dedicated AI processing unit. After the product was launched, Cambrian's market valuation quickly climbed from US$100 million to US$1 billion, and the industry attracted full attention. At that time, Chen Tianshi wrote a sentiment on the social platform: "No matter what you do in your life, you can't be a teacher, but you can't be a teacher."
From 2017 to 2019, Huawei's IP licensing business has long accounted for the absolute majority of Cambrian's revenue, with its revenue share ranging from 98.95% to 99.69%. The company's operations are highly dependent on a single partner. In 2019, Huawei officially announced that it would develop its own Da Vinci architecture and gradually terminate its chip licensing cooperation with Cambrian. Nearly 90% of the company's core revenue sources shrank instantly.
Financial report data for the first half of 2020 shows that the proportion of related revenue from Huawei has dropped sharply to 14.34%. Companies are forced to quickly diversify their customer base and face the operating pressure caused by short-term revenue gaps.
"There is nothing wrong with anything in life, but it is not a teacher to create a good atmosphere."
Huawei succeeds and Huawei fails. Overnight, 99% of income went to zero.
The coldest bench has just begun.
4. Darkest: Loss of 5.4 billion in 8 years and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds
In July 2020, Cambrian was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board and became the first listed company in the domestic AI chip track. On the first day of listing, the company's market value exceeded the 100 billion mark. After the short-term highlight, the multiple pressures of the industry cycle, external restrictions, and customer loss came to the fore. The stock price dropped from a maximum of 297 yuan to 46.59 yuan, an overall decline of more than 84%.
From 2017 to 2024, Cambrian failed to achieve profitability for eight consecutive full operating years, with a total cumulative loss of more than 5.4 billion yuan. At the end of 2022, the company was included in the entity list by the United States, and overseas supply chain channels and advanced process cooperation were fully restricted; in March of the same year, CTO Liang Jun resigned due to differences in business philosophy, and core technology management experienced personnel fluctuations.
Sentiment in the capital market has turned cold, and problems such as shrinking external orders, blocked overseas technology channels, and the loss of core talents have hit simultaneously. Even though it is operating at a sustained loss, Cambrian still maintains high-intensity technology investment, and the proportion of R&D expenses in operating income has remained above 50% all year round.
At the end of 2023, the Siyuan 590 cloud chip will be released, using the 7nm process. The INT8 computing power will reach 512TOPS, and the comprehensive performance can reach 80% of the NVIDIA A100 level. After the product was launched, domestic leading Internet platforms such as ByteDance, Alibaba, and Baidu were gradually included in the list of core customers, and the cloud business gradually made up for the shortcomings in the customer structure.
In the coldest winter, he chose to continue burning money.
It’s not that I’m not afraid of death, it’s that I know that only technology can save lives.
5. Counterattack: In 2025, the cold bench finally becomes popular.
In the fourth quarter of 2024, Cambrian achieved a single-quarter profit for the first time, marking an inflection point in the loss cycle. The full-year operating data for 2025 was released. The company's total revenue was 6.497 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 453.21%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 2.059 billion yuan, completing the first full-year profit since the company was founded.
In terms of business structure, the cloud product line generated annual revenue of 6.476 billion yuan, accounting for more than 99% of the overall revenue and becoming the core income pillar of the company. The capital market then ushered in a substantial recovery, with the stock price rising from a low of 46 yuan to over 1,400 yuan, an increase of more than 25 times. The company's market value once surpassed Kweichow Moutai and topped the A-share market value list. At the equity level, Chen Tianshi directly holds 28.63% of the company's shares, corresponding to a book market value of approximately 160.2 billion yuan.
Reviewing the long R&D and entrepreneurship cycle, Chen Tianshi always maintains a long-term perspective on the competitive landscape of the chip industry: "Intel is 52 years old this year, AMD is 51 years old this year, and NVIDIA is 27 years old this year. The Cambrian is only 4 years old, and the long-distance race has just begun." At the same time, he made clear the underlying logic of the industry: "Chip research and development is a long-distance race, and there are no shortcuts."
Eight years of continuous losses finally led to overall profits. The short-term surge in market value is not a speculative dividend, but two decades of technological accumulation that gradually realizes industrial value. The bench that has been sitting on the bench since childhood has gone through multiple tests of scientific research, entrepreneurship, sanctions, and supply cuts, and finally it is time to heat up.
8 years of losses and one day of profits. He didn't win by betting, he won by surviving.
The bench that has been sitting on the bench for 20 years is finally getting warmer.
ending
In 2025, Cambrian's annual revenue was 6.497 billion, and its market value once surpassed Moutai. The market value of Chen Tianshi's corresponding shareholding was close to 170 billion. Faced with the high valuation given by the market, he still emphasized the long-term nature of the industry, and the industrial journey is far from reaching the end.
From a 16-year-old boy who almost repeated a grade to the core helm of the domestic AI chip industry; from theoretical deductions in a small 30-square-meter laboratory to a technology listed company that topped the A-share market value list. Twenty years of continuous development, the whole process has been accompanied by doubts, losses, external restrictions and customer faults.
Long-term industry practice has confirmed that there is no shortcut to quick profits in the chip industry. Long-term and continuous technological development is the feasible path for domestic chips to break through.
If you sit on a cold bench for a long time, you will always get hot.
The real counterattack is not to get rich overnight, but to stand up after sitting on the bench for 20 years.
Data source
Regarding Chen Tianshi, who was born in 1985 and was admitted to the juvenile class of the University of Science and Technology of China at the age of 16, and his elder brother Chen Yunji was admitted to the juvenile class at the age of 14: Global People reported in August 2025.
Regarding the establishment of Cambrian in 2016 with a registered capital of 900,000 yuan: Global People reported in August 2025.
Regarding Huawei Kirin 970 integrated Cambrian 1A processor, Chen Tianshi’s circle of friends: reported by global figures in August 2025.
Regarding Huawei’s revenue accounting for 98.95%-99.69% during the cooperation and the termination of the cooperation in 2019: Enterprise Observation Network reported in July 2021.
Regarding Cambrian’s listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board in 2020, the stock price fell from 297 yuan to 46.59 yuan: Wind data.
Regarding eight consecutive years of losses from 2017 to 2024, with cumulative losses exceeding 5.4 billion yuan: Cambrian annual reports.
Regarding being included in the Entity List by the United States at the end of 2022: Cambrian Announcement in April 2025.
Regarding CTO Liang Jun’s resignation in March 2022: Oriental Lawyer Network reported in December 2025.
About Siyuan 590 chip parameters (7nm, 512TOPS, up to A10080%): Baidu Encyclopedia.
Regarding Cambrian’s revenue of 6.497 billion yuan and net profit of 2.059 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 453%: Daily Economic Network reported in March 2026; Securities Times reported in February 2026.
Regarding Cambrian’s market value once surpassing Kweichow Moutai and Chen Tianshi’s net worth of nearly 170 billion yuan: Global People reported in August 2025; Securities Times reported in August 2025.
[1] Cambricon official website, www.cambricon.com
[2] "Chen Tianshi: In-depth analysis of industries related to Cambrian", Cambrian Technology AI chip industry research report
[3] Compilation of Chen Tianshi’s public speeches and media interviews
Follow
Scan to follow for more stories
Cover ArchiveArchive
View archive file →Every cover publication is registered and kept in the ACF Cover Archive. The code is permanent.
Not Everyone Makes the Cover
Asia Cover Figure · Influencing Those Who Influence