AI reshapes China's tech rich list: 94 people are worth more than $1 billion, and the wealth of the gaming and semiconductor industries has skyrocketed

Source of this article: Times Weekly Author: Zhang Zhao

A few days ago, the annual "Hurun Global Rich List" was officially released.

In the past year, 167 billion-dollar entrepreneurs have been added to the world, bringing the total number of billion-dollar entrepreneurs to 3,279. Among them, China dropped 155 places to 814 places, but still ranked first in the world, the United States increased 109 places to 800, behind China, and India ranked third with 271.

Hurun Report, chairman and chief research officer, said that for the first time this year, AI has deeply influenced the global rich list, and more than half of the new wealth comes from AI.

Specifically, the wealth of entrepreneurs related to cloud computing, such as Amazon, Meta, Oracle, Microsoft, and Google's parent company Alphabet, has increased significantly, and most of them have entered the top 10 in the world. As the CEO of Nvidia, the hottest AI concept stock, Huang's wealth has increased significantly for the first time, with an increase of 118%, entering the top 30 in the world.

According to the analysis of Tianfeng Securities Research Report, looking back on the NVIDIA GTC conference in the past two years, a number of blockbuster products have been released, which has also driven the development of the entire AI accelerated computing industry. From cloud computing to big data technology, high-performance computing to unmanned driving, robotics to artificial intelligence, and then to AIGC, which is now causing a global wave of AI, NVIDIA, as a non-stop technology company, often announces its most cutting-edge technology at the GTC conference, and has become the vane of the global AI field.

Similar to the above-mentioned U.S. companies, China's tech and internet wealth rankings have also been affected by the wave of new AI technologies and have quietly changed. According to a reporter from Time Weekly, Chinese entrepreneurs or families related to the AI industry account for a total of 94 seats on the "Hurun Global Rich List".

Chinese tech giants are scrambling to deploy AI

According to the full "Hurun Global Rich List" obtained by a reporter from Time Weekly, there are four Chinese technology industry entrepreneurs or families whose wealth is in the top 100 in the world.

Chinese entrepreneurs or families who have entered the Global Rich List Source: Hurun Global Rich List

Pinduoduo (PDD.O) Huang Zheng leads the way, with a wealth of 385 billion yuan, ranking 24th in the world, Tencent (00700.HK) Ma Huateng is second, with a wealth of 250 billion yuan, ranking 36th in the world, followed by NetEase (09999.HK, NTES.O) Ding Lei, with a wealth of 210 billion yuan, ranking 43rd in the world, and Alibaba's Ma Yun family is ranked third, with a wealth of 150 billion yuan, ranking 82nd in the world.

In the past year, Tencent, NetEase, and Alibaba have all laid out AI in their respective fields and put it into practical application.

Tencent unveiled the hybrid model at the 2023 Tencent Global Digital Ecosystem Conference, which is open to the public through Tencent Cloud. According to the 2023 annual results report, Tencent Hybrid has developed into a leading basic model with excellent performance in mathematical derivation, logical reasoning and multi-round dialogue, while upgrading its AI-driven ad tech platform to significantly improve the effectiveness of precision delivery and thereby increasing advertising revenue, and deploying generative AI capabilities and enhancing commercialization in WeChat Work and Tencent Meeting.

As one of the earliest game manufacturers in China to deploy in the field of AIGC, NetEase launched the first AIGC mobile game "Against the Cold" in China in June last year. According to the 2023 annual results report, the mobile game series has reached a new milestone, attracting more than 100 million active users through a variety of content and well-received activities.

Alibaba (09988.HK) HK, BABA.N) officially launched the "Tongyi Qianwen" model at the 2023 Alibaba Cloud Summit. Soon, DingTalk was officially connected to the "Tongyi Qianwen" model. In January this year, Alibaba Cloud announced the latest general-purpose computing instance, ECS g8i, which significantly improved its overall performance and AI inference capabilities.

In addition, the changes in the wealth of the founders of Pinduoduo, Tencent, NetEase, and Alibaba are more closely related to the rise and fall of the stock prices of their listed companies.

Since last year, Tencent's share price has gradually fallen, from a high of HK$416.6 per share to around HK$300 per share, a drop of nearly 30 percent, and Ma Huateng's wealth has shrunk by 10 percent, while Alibaba's U.S. stock price has fallen from a high of US$121.3 per share to around US$72 per share, a drop of about 60 percent, resulting in a 16 percent decline in the wealth of the Jack Ma family.

On the other hand, NetEase's U.S. stock price has experienced a steady rise, from less than $80 per share at the beginning of last year to more than $100 per share, an increase of about 30 percent, driving Ding Lei's wealth growth by 7 percent, while Pinduoduo's U.S. stock price has risen from $85 per share at the beginning of last year to more than $150 per share at the beginning of this year, an increase of nearly 80 percent, driving Huang Zheng's wealth by 71 percent.

Fortunes in the gaming and semiconductor industries have skyrocketed

From the perspective of the industries in which China's AI-related enterprises are located, the industries that benefit from the development of AI technology generally include cloud computing, unmanned driving, robots, artificial intelligence, games, semiconductors, optical modules, consumer electronics and other fields, among which the overall wealth growth of the game and semiconductor industries is relatively fast.

Gaming is one of the closest scenarios to AI applications. Judging from the changes in the ranking of the game industry, the fortunes of Cai Haoyu, Liu Wei, Luo Yuhao, and Song Tao of miHoYo soared by 210%, 155%, 145%, and 230% to 67 billion yuan, 37 billion yuan, 35.5 billion yuan, and 24 billion yuan, respectively, and their rankings rose 816, 1350, 1412, and 1873 to 251st, 625th, 655th, and 1050th in the world.

In addition, from Zhongxu Future (09890. HK) Wu Xubo, Li Qiong and Zhou Yahui from Kunlun Wanwei (300418.SZ) and Zhong Yingwu from Qujia Technology have become the new faces of the world's rich list, with a wealth of 13.5 billion yuan, 11 billion yuan, 10 billion yuan and 10 billion yuan respectively.

Last year, miHoYo's new two-dimensional galaxy adventure turn-based RPG game "Honkai: Star Railway" (hereinafter referred to as "Star Rail") topped SensorTower's monthly overseas mobile game revenue list and overseas revenue growth list for many times. According to the producer of "Star Rail", he has tried AI tools to assist in adjusting 3D modeling and NPC copywriting, and hopes to create "NPCs whose dialogues will never repeat" through AI tools in the future.

At the same time, in the semiconductor industry, Cambrian (688256. SH) and MediaTek (2454.TW) Zhuo Zhizhe and other wealth also grew rapidly, increasing by 120% and 60% to 16 billion yuan and 11.5 billion yuan respectively, and the rankings rose 1142 and 280 places to 1632nd and 2171st in the world respectively, in addition, Yuan Jiangtao, Ding Hui and Ding Huixiang from Jialichuang and Wang Xuehong and Chen Wenqi from Hongda became the new faces of the global rich list, with a wealth of 18 billion yuan, 13.5 billion yuan, 13.5 billion yuan and 12 billion yuan respectively.

Since 2023, affected by the ChatGPT boom, the share price of Cambrian, which focuses on the research and development of AI chips, has soared, rising from about 55 yuan to the highest point of more than 270 yuan, and the market value once exceeded 100 billion yuan. As of March 27, its market value has fallen back to 70.5 billion yuan.

The share price of MediaTek, which focuses on mobile phone chips, has also risen rapidly since 2023, from more than NT$600 to the highest point of more than NT$1,200, and its market value once exceeded NT$2 trillion.

Both the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain have benefited

It is worth noting that with the rapid growth of the demand for AI computing power, in addition to semiconductor chips, upstream packaging manufacturers and downstream server manufacturers in the computing power industry chain have also benefited, and the wealth of related entrepreneurs has also risen.

Among them, Quanta Computer (2382. TW) Lin Baili family and Inventec (2356.TW) Ye Guoyi family and other wealth growth rapidly, increasing by 180% and 80% to 60.5 billion yuan and 13 billion yuan respectively, ranking up 655 and 502 places to 300th and 1942nd in 300308 the world, respectively; SZ), Wang Weixiu, Wang Xiaodong and his son, and Tianfu Communications (300394. SZ) Zou Zhinong family has become a new face on the global rich list, with a wealth of 13.5 billion yuan.

Also affected by the ChatGPT craze, the stock prices of Quanta Computer and Inventec have both risen sharply in 2023, from the lowest of more than NT$70 and NT$20 to the highest of more than NT$280 and NT$70, respectively.

Quanta Computer's 2023 annual financial report shows that the demand for its main server business is strong, especially AI servers, accounting for 65% of its total sales, and Meta and Google are its main customers, while Inventec is the supplier of Nvidia's B100 liquid cooling project, and its AI server business is dominated by Nvidia products, and its B100 products will start mass production in the fourth quarter of this year.

In addition, the humanoid robot company UBTECH (09880. HK) and Dai Wenyuan of artificial intelligence company Fourth Paradigm (06682.HK) also saw faster growth, increasing by 30% and 20% to 9.5 billion yuan and 8.5 billion yuan respectively.

As the "first share of humanoid robots" in Hong Kong stocks, UBTECH landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on December 29, 2023, and two months after listing, the stock price rose 88.13% in a single day, rushing to HK$200 per share, with a market value of more than HK$80 billion, while 4Paradigm, one of the "AI Four Little Dragons", landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on September 28, 2023, and after 5 months of listing, the stock price rose 27.97% to HK$75.5 per share in a single day, and the intraday stock price once rose by more than 90% to HK$100 per share.

UBTECH said on March 6 through the WeChat public account that humanoid robots have entered the stage of industrialization, and intelligent manufacturing, especially in the field of automobile manufacturing, may become the first large-scale application field.

On March 20, 4Paradigm released its first annual results since its listing. According to the financial report, 4Paradigm achieved revenue of 4.204 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 36.4%, gross profit of 1.98 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.2%, and an adjusted net loss of 415 million yuan, a decrease of 17.6% compared with 2022, forming a year-on-year month-on-month loss reduction trend since 2021.