China chip developer Hongjun raises $120m

Computing chip start-up Biren Technology, Chendao Capital, GreenPine Capital, C Ventures, and Xiao Venture Capital participated in the round. The proceeds will be used mainly for R&D around CPUs for high-efficiency servers, a team expansion, and research-relevant infrastructure construction.

Hongjun, which focuses on chips for the data centre cloud computing market, was founded in August 2021 by as chairman and CEO Rong Shen, and chief technology officer Weixiang Chen. Its server shipments in China are expected to reach 5.25m units in 2025; this market is worth USD 35 billion, according to IDC.

Shen previously worked for Intel for more than 20 years and participated in the process of updating its traditional server architecture. Most recently, he was vice president of Inspur Group and responsible for its server product line.

Chen was the main architect for Huawei Technologies’ Kunpeng kernel, which is used in cloud computing. He was also the system-on-chip design leader in Alibaba Group’s T-Head semiconductor unit.

“With the further popularization of cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence, global cloud computing giants are rapidly embracing ARM architecture servers,” said Lin Wang, a partner at Walden.

“The server processor based on the ARM architecture not only has the advantages of a large number of computing cores and low power consumption, but also can be better integrated with the mobile processor based on the ARM architecture. Hongjun's ARM server processor will surely lead the transformation of cloud computing and data centre infrastructure and become the base of the computing power era.”

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Early-stage
• Technology
• China
• CDH Investments Management
• Walden International
• Green Pine Capital Partners
• semiconductor
• GL Ventures