Moonshot AI is considering a second route to the public markets through Shanghai’s Science and Technology Innovation Board, known as the STAR Market, in addition to the Hong Kong IPO it is already preparing. A mainland listing could give the Beijing-based startup behind Kimi K3 access to billions of dollars in capital to finance the costly training of frontier AI models.

The plans were first reported by the South China Morning Post on Thursday, citing two people familiar with the matter.

Moonshot considers a second listing

Moonshot has confidentially filed paperwork for a Hong Kong IPO and is targeting a listing as early as the first quarter of 2027. One source said the company began exploring a mainland listing after a July meeting with its financial backers, where they discussed arrangements for the IPO.

Hong Kong’s AI stocks have struggled to maintain momentum in recent weeks, despite the large number of companies seeking to list in the market. That weakness has contributed to growing interest in Shanghai’s STAR Market, which offers AI companies another potential path to the public markets.

Moonshot is conducting a final financing round ahead of the listing that could value the company at about $50 billion. Reuters separately valued the Hong Kong fundraising at about $3 billion. Those figures are substantial for a company founded only three years ago.

Moonshot was established in 2023 by Yang Zhilin. Its rapid growth has been driven largely by Kimi, the company’s family of AI models and consumer applications, which has made Moonshot a prominent participant in China’s generative AI race.

The company released Kimi K3 in July and described it as the world’s largest open-weight AI model, with 2.8 trillion parameters. According to Moonshot, demand for Kimi K3 has been strong enough to place significant strain on the model’s available computing capacity. That combination of model development and computing demand makes access to capital central to Moonshot’s expansion plans.

Shanghai attracts more AI companies

If Moonshot proceeds with a mainland listing, it is likely to target the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR Market. Talks with the exchange could begin soon, according to the SCMP’s sources.

Rivals Z.ai, formerly known as Zhipu, and MiniMax are also working on STAR Market listings. The board’s waiting list includes DeepSeek and Yangtze Memory Technologies. Recent additions to the Shanghai Stock Exchange include ChangXin Memory Technologies and robotics company Unitree.

Moonshot is also reportedly discussing revenue-sharing agreements with Microsoft, Amazon and Google that would allow the U.S. cloud providers to host its AI models. The company’s next milestones therefore include the outcome of its final financing round, any talks with the STAR Market, and progress toward the confidential Hong Kong filing and reported cloud-hosting agreements.