Chip Export Curbs Drive Chinese Companies to Focus on Self-Sufficiency

The US chip export curbs have unexpectedly had an impact on China's IPO pipeline. According to Morgan Stanley's review of 229 IPOs between 2022 and mid-July 2026, nearly one in five companies that launched IPOs on Shanghai's Star Market this year are working on technologies Beijing sees as exposed chokepoints.

The majority of these companies, 19 out of 21, sit somewhere in the semiconductor supply chain. This shift is a significant change from four years ago when the group was spread across a wider mix of strategic goods.

Morgan Stanley's analysts found that by 2026, the focus had narrowed hard to chips, materials, parts, and the machines that make them. Sixty percent of this year's Star Market debutants now contribute directly to China's self-sufficiency drive, up from 41% in 2022.

Jiangsu Shenzhou Semiconductor Technology is one such example. The Yangzhou company had its Star Market IPO application accepted on June 30 and is seeking to raise about 2.5 billion yuan. It makes plasma power supply systems used in semiconductor equipment, a critical component that sits deep enough in the manufacturing chain.

The US policy has created uncertainty for Chinese founders, with export license applications for Nvidia H200 and AMD MI325X chips headed to case-by-case review if certain security conditions were met. The White House also announced a 25% tariff on certain advanced computing chips.