Chinese artificial intelligence startup Manycore Tech Inc. is aggressively pursuing international expansion, undeterred by the escalating tensions between the U.S. and China that pose growing obstacles for Chinese technology firms seeking to develop and export advanced technologies.
Based in Hangzhou, Manycore, a provider of spatial design software and a potential competitor to the American company Autodesk Inc., has established local teams in over 10 countries, including the U.S., South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia, to cater to its business clients.
“While our product has global appeal, we need to be strategic and focus our initial efforts on specific countries,” Manycore co-founder and Chairman Victor Huang stated in a Bloomberg TV interview on Wednesday. “Our international business is experiencing rapid growth, particularly with our freemium model, which we believe holds significant potential for global adoption.”
Huang, 40, joins a growing number of young Chinese AI entrepreneurs, such as Manus AI’s Xiao Hong, in articulating their global aspirations. This comes at a time when Chinese companies are facing increased scrutiny in Western markets, with DeepSeek, another Chinese AI firm, facing bans on government devices in multiple countries.
To enhance its capabilities, Manycore is actively recruiting talent from prestigious U.S. universities like Stanford and Harvard, as well as from top Chinese institutions such as Peking University and Tsinghua University, according to Huang. Huang himself holds a master’s degree in computer science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and previously held a position at Nvidia Corp. in the U.S. He earned his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Zhejiang University, the same institution attended by DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng.
Manycore currently offers two products internationally: Coohom and SpatialVerse, Huang said. The company’s initial public offering prospectus reveals that as of 2024, it boasted an average of 86.3 million monthly active visitors, with customers spanning over 200 markets.
Within China, Huang’s company is recognized as one of Hangzhou’s “Six Little Dragons,” a group of notable hardtech startups, including DeepSeek and Unitree Robotics, that originated in the southern Chinese city, which also serves as the headquarters for e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Co.
Manycore is poised to be the first of the “Six Little Dragons” to go public, having filed for an IPO in Hong Kong in February. The company abandoned a previous attempt to list in the U.S. following the controversial New York debut of ride-hailing firm Didi Global Inc.
While restricted access to Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips has emerged as a widespread hurdle for Chinese technology companies, Huang remains optimistic. Manycore is dedicating engineering resources to maximizing the efficiency of all legally obtainable computing power, including renting resources from providers like Amazon.com Inc.’s Amazon Web Services, he explained.
“Our current strategy doesn’t require the most high-end GPUs. We’re focused on making rendering and AI more affordable and faster for our users,” Huang stated, clarifying that his company utilizes chips from both Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. “Our legal department ensures that all our purchases comply with regulations, and we then develop our proprietary software and systems based on this legally acquired hardware.”
Huang also emphasized the importance of affordability for prospective clients, a strategy reminiscent of the long-standing approach employed by Chinese companies across various sectors, including electric vehicles, where aggressive pricing and sacrificing short-term profitability are used to gain market share. Manycore reported a loss of 422.1 million yuan ($58.3 million) in the first nine months of 2024, continuing a trend of losses for at least two years.