In January of this year, Z.AI, dubbed the "first global large model stock," made its debut on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, marking a landmark sci-tech IPO that at one point pushed its market value past the trillion-yuan threshold. By July, ChangXin Technology, China's leading DRAM manufacturer, listed on the STAR Market, placing semiconductor-focused tech enterprises squarely at the center of the capital markets, with its valuation briefly exceeding four trillion yuan. Behind both of these industry-defining companies stands a common backer: Legend Capital.

Since the start of the year, Legend Capital has secured nine IPOs in quick succession, including Z.AI and ChangXin Technology, as well as Shenghe Micro, a global leader in wafer-level advanced packaging and testing. These milestones paint a vivid picture of the explosive growth sweeping through China's core technology sector.

"Investing early, small, and in hard tech is the starting point; investing big, difficult, and long-term is the real battle," says Li Jiaqing, President of Legend Capital, during a meeting with investors at the firm's Haidian office in Beijing. Looking at the trillion-yuan companies Legend Capital has backed, one can trace the profile of a tech investor who follows the tide without drifting, turning cold seats into center stage. Now, as China experiences its most fervent wave of technological advancement, Li opens up about his current perspectives.

Nine IPOs in Seven Months, From Z.AI to ChangXin

2026 has brought a fresh wave of validation for Legend Capital's sci-tech investments. Z.AI, ChangXin Technology, Shenghe Micro, Edge Medical, Rebo Biotech, Haizhi Technology Group, Tianxing Medical, Tuopu CNC, and Huajian Future—nine portfolio companies have listed on various capital markets this year. Their sectors span large models, memory semiconductors, advanced packaging, surgical robots, high-end CNC machine tools, and innovative biomedicine, covering multiple strategic hard-tech tracks vital to the nation.

This marks the moment when those committed to investing in "big, difficult, and long" ventures receive their due reward from the times. Specifically, the successful IPOs of Z.AI, the large model leader; Shenghe Micro, the advanced packaging champion; and Edge Medical, a surgical robotics firm, also represent the first batch of portfolio companies to go public from the Social Security Fund's Zhongguancun Special Fund.

Looking back to July 2023, the National Social Security Fund partnered with Beijing to launch its first dedicated fund—the Social Security Fund Zhongguancun Independent Innovation Special Fund. With an initial scale of 5 billion yuan, fully funded by the Social Security Fund, Legend Capital was appointed as the manager. From its inception, the fund was tasked with serving national strategic technological strength and driving high-quality development in the capital city.

At a time when tech investment had become industry consensus and capital flooded into popular tech narratives, Legend Capital, as the fund's manager, avoided the trend of broad, undifferentiated investment. Instead, it anchored on original innovation, directing capital toward breakthroughs in "bottleneck" technologies and the commercialization of university and research institute outcomes. In selecting targets, the focus was on projects that are "early, new, hard, big, difficult, and long"—a logic Legend Capital has consistently upheld.

After three years of operation, the Social Security Fund Zhongguancun Special Fund has delivered a substantial track record: nearly 50% of its invested companies have won national honors like the State Science and Technology Progress Award or undertaken major national sci-tech missions; "specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative" enterprises account for nearly 90%, with about 60% being national-level "little giants"; unicorns make up 40% of unlisted companies; and nearly half of the funds have been channeled into commercialization projects from universities and research institutes. Through collaborative investment, it has leveraged over 30 billion yuan in social capital, a multiplier of more than 9 times, continuously guiding private funds into Beijing's hard-tech sector.

The fruits are already visible—beyond the three listed companies, a wave of local hard-tech leaders like Kunlunxin and LandSpace are now in the pipeline for listing. As many in the industry observe, managing such a specialized fund is no easy feat. It demands a highly mature manager with seasoned teams and abundant resources. Legend Capital elevated the special fund to its highest priority from day one, not setting up a separate investment team but operating in tandem with its blind pool funds, mutually reinforcing each other and selecting projects with the highest standards.

There is also a deeper mission at play. The Legend Capital team aims to back tech enterprises that align with and support national strategy, which fits the fund's very purpose as an institutional innovation responding to national priorities and supporting Beijing's development as an international sci-tech innovation center. While the market chases narratives, Legend Capital emphasizes "seeking truth and practicality"—focusing on projects that genuinely solve foundational problems.

Diving Beneath the Surface to Cultivate

In this era of sci-tech innovation, the market constantly chases the "next hundred-billion-yuan market cap." But Legend Capital holds a firm internal belief: seeing is not the same as understanding, and true hard-core innovation often lies beneath the surface. Beyond glamorous capital stories, what deserves deeper exploration are the hidden champions that tackle core industrial bottlenecks. This requires investors to stay patient and accompany companies along the long path from laboratory to industrialization.

The quantum computing sector offers a vivid example. As a strategic high ground in next-generation information technology, quantum tech is reshaping technology, industry, and economic paradigms through disruptive innovation, becoming a key variable in reshaping global tech competition. However, with multiple technical routes running in parallel worldwide, it's too early to declare a winner. Few outside the industry know that Legend Capital is one of China's earliest investors in quantum computing and the only leading institution covering mainstream routes including superconducting, photonic, trapped-ion, and neutral-atom approaches.

Back in 2020, QuantumCTek successfully IPO'd on the STAR Market as China's "first quantum tech stock," with Legend Capital in its corner—having begun positioning in this frontier field over a decade earlier. Another portfolio company, TuringQ, focused on photonic quantum computing, has already delivered multiple complete systems and initiated its IPO guidance in August 2026. Then there's HYY Quantum, spun out of Tsinghua University's Quantum Information Center, whose room-temperature trapped-ion quantum computer, built by academician Duan Luming's team, reaches world-class performance in certain metrics.

Perhaps most notable is Two-State Universe (Liangyi Wanxiang), a neutral-atom quantum computing company that wasn't a ready-made market find. Instead, Legend Capital deeply incubated it, overseeing everything from company establishment and technology transfer to team building. Two-State Universe has pioneered an innovative commercialization model: scientists remain in university labs for fundamental research, while a specialized industrial team handles engineering and scaling, with research and industry each playing to their strengths. In 2026, the team achieved a major breakthrough with ten-thousand-atom qubits, placing it among the global first tier in neutral-atom quantum computing.

In Legend Capital's view, in the early stages of an industry where technology hasn't converged, large-scale "systematic positioning" has limited value—even investing in 20 or 30 projects may not improve success odds. Rather than spreading wide, it's better to make small, deliberate moves and quietly wait for the industry inflection point. "Sometimes we think Legend Capital itself is a 'variable.' Because we get deeply involved, pour in resources, and work toward better outcomes. This project plus Legend Capital might have a higher probability of success than others," Li says.

This stems from Legend Capital's deep understanding of "patient capital"—not chasing trendy narratives, but finding the "hidden champions" that solve foundational problems and build full-chain technical systems, accompanying them with long-term capital through the critical phase from lab to industry. Ultimately, what matters isn't casting a wide net, but active cultivation.

In Legend Capital's practice, especially with hard-tech ventures emerging from universities and research institutes, providing money is just the starting point. For scientist-entrepreneurs who often face gaps in corporate governance, technology transfer, and commercialization, Legend Capital's post-investment services span the entire enterprise lifecycle: from helping clarify intellectual property rights between schools and enterprises and refining equity structures, to leveraging its professional empowerment system to strengthen founders' management capabilities. Even after a company goes public, the support continues—participation in strategic discussions, connecting upstream and downstream industry resources, rationally viewing paper gains, and even confronting challenges like share lock-up expirations on the secondary market.

Simultaneously, Legend Capital extends its vision further upstream into basic research. To date, it has formed strategic partnerships with multiple universities and research institutes, focusing on joint research and talent development in key areas like artificial intelligence and world models, actively promoting the conversion and implementation of research outcomes to help China advance toward the center of the global AI stage. Facing frontier tracks with long technology cycles and unresolved convergence, rather than betting on probability through broad investment, the key to navigating industry cycles is genuinely sinking resources in and accompanying research results through the complete transformation from lab to commercial enterprise.

Cold Reflections Amid the Heat

"This all came too fast," Li says, sharing his most genuine feeling. Over the past few years, persistently nurturing "early, new, and hard" investments while targeting "big, difficult, and long" ventures has, in a sense, resonated with international dynamics and national policy. Legend Capital received positive feedback faster than expected, and this realization of value has even exceeded projections.

In the meantime, China's tech investment has surged at breakneck speed. Nearly all available capital has poured into frontier fields like AI, large models, embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and quantum, giving rise to hundreds of new entities in a short span. The flow of money has driven a wave of entrepreneurship, with many projects seeing valuations double repeatedly within months and hundred-billion-yuan startups emerging in batches—an oversupply of opportunities.

This new form of venture investing means people are bolder and more willing to support long-term development. But beneath the noise, uncertainty lurks—capital has been pushed to the front end, not fully following the natural laws of how things develop. Funding, valuations, and listings are all front-loaded. Li candidly admits that in some industries, current project valuations are partially mismatched with their actual technical level and development timeline. He cautions: as of today, many tracks are still in their very early stages and cannot achieve closed-loop cycles for a considerable period.

Reviewing the period from 2022 to now, despite the overall boom in tech investment, the only sector that has truly formed a closed loop is AI large models and the new infrastructure they've generated. Everything else—whether quantum, controlled nuclear fusion, commercial aerospace, or embodied intelligence—remains in early development. Technologies haven't converged and require long validation cycles; then, to truly enter industry, create new demand and scenarios, and generate returns, still takes substantial time.

"This is the reality we face today. Current valuations are high enough, but that high valuation has its rationale—people are willing to give future growth a higher premium," Li notes. Perhaps someday, adjustments and volatility will follow. He believes that as an investor, one must, on one hand, stay patient and focused on "early, new, hard, big, difficult, and long." On the other hand, when the wind suddenly picks up and market sentiment is building, it's time to be more discerning and cautious, patiently seeking out the most exceptional people and projects.

In practical terms, this translates to: first, having strong foresight and early positioning; second, possessing "big if" judgment—and theoretically, if a project can truly achieve something major, investors will have multiple opportunities to enter, so there's no need to rush; act like a "discoverer" rather than scattering shots; third, having "taste"—you can go with the flow but not drift with it.

In recent years, Li has increasingly realized that success is a low-probability event, and the era of solving problems through broad but shallow investment may be over. "But once you get it right, the reward this era gives you is far greater than before."