①Current market trends are the result of multiple factors, including the industry’s positive outlook, technological advancements, and gradual realization of business results. However, sufficient attention still needs to be paid to the company’s commercialization and overall operational capabilities. ② Industrial applications have fallen into the “trough of disillusionment,” but a “V-shaped” recovery is expected in the second half of 2026.
STAR Market Daily reported on January 30th (reporter Huang Xinqi) that some AI concept stocks in the Hong Kong stock market have shown strong performance recently. On January 29, Minimax, a large-scale domestic AI model company, closed at HK$500 per share. Since listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 9, the company’s stock price has increased more than 200%. Meanwhile, Unisound, known as the “first AGI stock” on the Hong Kong stock market, has risen about 78% in the past two days.
Zhang Yi, CEO and Chief Analyst of iiMedia Consulting, told STAR Market Daily that the current market trends are the result of multiple factors, including the industry’s bright outlook, technological advancements, and gradual realization of business results. However, sufficient attention still needs to be paid to the company’s commercialization and overall operational capabilities. The question remains whether strong market sentiment and sector popularity alone can sustain long-term performance, especially for companies that are not yet profitable.
▍MiniMax M2.1 praised by ClawdBot founder
In the news, the overseas AI assistant “ClawdBot” is attracting a lot of attention from both the market and users. Its founder praised MiniMax’s large model M2.1 on social media platforms, stating that his personal studio has introduced a top-of-the-line device with a 512G configuration dedicated to running and testing local AI models. Peter said he is currently looking into multi-device collaborative application scenarios for running AI models. MiniMax M2.1’s performance on a single device lays the foundation for subsequent multi-device deployments.
Peter emphasized that “running AI models locally is an important upcoming development trend in the industry.” As a domestic open-source model, MiniMax M2.1 has shown great advantages in local deployment and is expected to precisely meet the core needs of more enterprises and developers for controllable data privacy and flexible and efficient deployment.
Unisound recently released its 2025 revenue forecast. According to the announcement, the company’s revenue from large model-related business has achieved significant growth, and in 2025, the total revenue from large model-related business is expected to be approximately 600 million yuan to 620 million yuan, which corresponds to a year-on-year growth of approximately 1057% to 1095%.
Unisound believes this is due to the combined effect of maintaining industry leadership in core technology capabilities for large models and accelerating the commercialization process. Meanwhile, the company launched “Shanhai.Zhiyin” large model 2.0. “Shanhai.Zhiyin” Large Model 2.0 leverages the multimodal and cross-linguistic foundational capabilities of “Shanhai.Atlas” and focuses on evolving three core competencies: understanding jargon and regional accents, fostering emotional connections through conversation, and achieving hyper-agile responses.
▍ Commercialization ability remains a key focus under multiple favorable factors
Zhang Yi, CEO and Chief Analyst of iiMedia Consulting, said the current market rise is the result of a convergence of factors including industry outlook, technological advancements, and performance delivery.
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange’s Rule 18C is highly favorable to AI companies, attracting international capital and tech giants as well. The globalization of C-end applications and B-end MaaS (Model as a Service) business models is gaining recognition from the market and investors. Coupled with breakthroughs in AI technology, this has fueled sector sentiment and increased capital inflows.
However, Zhang Yi emphasized that in the long run, it is still questionable whether the valuation of related stocks is too high, especially for unprofitable companies. Whether market enthusiasm and sector momentum alone can sustain the rise, and whether commercial monetization ability is a factor worth considering.
Although many companies have technology and capital, their overall operational capacity is insufficient. Due to increased competition in the industry, macro liquidity and market volatility may emerge at any time, requiring special attention from investors.
▍AI industry applications are in a “trough of disillusionment”
Regarding the development of AI technology in 2026, Chigen Research Institute believes that industrial applications are slipping into a “trough of disillusionment,” but a “V-shaped” recovery is expected in the second half of 2026.
After experiencing waves of proof of concept, enterprise-level AI applications are entering a trough of disillusionment due to issues such as data and cost. However, as data governance and toolchains mature, a tipping point is expected in the second half of 2026, leading to an expanded set of MVP products with measurable value across vertical industries.
C-end AI super apps have become the focus of competition among major companies, and the landscape of a “new BAT” in the AI era is taking shape. Recently, Alibaba’s Tongyi open-sourced Qwen3-TTS, and Baidu and Tencent successively announced cash rewards worth hundreds of millions for their AI applications during the Chinese New Year period. In its research report, Citi predicted that Alibaba’s Tongyi Qianwen would also participate in the red envelope promotional campaign.
Historically, Spring Festival activities have effectively helped major Internet companies draw significant attention to their consumer applications. Citi expects the adoption of AI assistant applications in China to accelerate rapidly following a series of new year promotions.
Zhiyuan Research Institute believes that although there are many giants in the general-purpose field, breakthrough opportunities still exist in some high-barrier verticals, such as healthcare and education, where vertical applications have a differentiated competitive advantage.
