{"id":172770,"date":"2025-12-03T11:51:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T11:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/172770\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T11:51:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T11:51:12","slug":"chinese-moguls-net-worth-soars-400-as-google-turns-to-his-company-for-ai-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/172770\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Mogul\u2019s Net Worth Soars 400% As Google Turns To His Company For AI Push"},"content":{"rendered":"

Artificial intelligence has propelled fortunes of U.S. tycoons like Google parent Alphabet\u2019s Sergey Brin<\/a> and Nvidia\u2019s Jensen Huang to stratospheric levels\u2014and now it\u2019s boosting Chinese moguls too. Wang Weixiu<\/a>, founder of Zhongji Innolight, saw his own net worth jump 400% this year to $13 billion as demand for his company\u2019s optical devices skyrockets.<\/p>\n

Wang, who stepped down as Zhongji Innolight’s chairman in 2023, still derives his net worth largely from a company stake, according to Forbes estimates. The 75-year-old had a fortune of $2.6 billion when Forbes measured his wealth for the World\u2019s Billionaires List<\/a> in March. Since then, Zhongji Innolight\u2019s Shenzhen-listed shares have soared more than five times.<\/p>\n

The surge recently minted a second billionaire from the company, which is based in Yantai, east China’s Shandong province. Zhongji Innolight\u2019s 54-year-old Chairman and CEO Liu Sheng<\/a> has seen his own net worth reach $2.7 billion, largely based on the executive\u2019s own company stake, according to Forbes estimates. Zhongji Innolight is preparing for a share sale in Hong Kong, the company announced in a November stock exchange filing<\/a>. It plans to raise over $3 billion, according to<\/a> Bloomberg News. The firm didn\u2019t respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Behind the eye-popping rally is skyrocketing demand for its optical transceivers that are being used in data centers worldwide, Arthur Lai, Hong Kong-based head of technology research at Macquarie Capital, says by phone. Customers including Google and Nvidia are scrambling to secure enough supply, as AI-related spending \u2013 including those on infrastructure like data centers \u2013 is projected to<\/a> swell to $375 billion by the end of the year and top $3 trillion in 2030.<\/p>\n

The transceivers, or electronic components typically the size of a USB flash drive, convert electrical signals into optical ones and vice versa for data transmission that is much faster than traditional copper wires. As the training of AI requires processing gigantic amounts of data, the hardware \u2013 which consists of tiny circuit boards and laser drivers \u2014 is playing an increasingly crucial role as it helps to boost speed and reduce latency. Such products are especially important today because data centers can reach millions of square feet in size \u2013 calling for reliable data transmission over longer distances.<\/p>\n

Zhongji Innolight\u2019s technology is the best in the world in terms of speed and reliability, Lai says. Its competitors include Eoptolink and TFC Communication in China and Lumentum in the U.S. In an October research note, Nomura analysts Duan Bing and Ethan Zhang called the company \u201cthe global No.1 data center transceiver maker,\u201d and said it \u201coutperformed its peers\u201d in the third quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cZhongji Innolight will continue to outgrow the industry and get more market share,\u201d says Macquarie Capital\u2019s Lai, pointing to the company\u2019s current scale and continued demand for its products.<\/p>\n

In the first nine months of this year, sales at the company rose 44.4% year-on-year to 25 billion yuan ($3.5 billion), according to its latest financial results. Net income jumped 90% to 7.1 billion yuan from a year ago, the results show. The global market for transceivers will grow at an annual rate of 70% to reach $40 billion by 2028, estimates Macquarie Capital.<\/p>\n

Billionaire Wang probably has a 2016 deal to thank for having Google as a key customer. A former technician at a state-owned factory, he founded Shandong Zhongji Electrical Equipment almost four decades ago in 1987. The business didn\u2019t have much to do with high tech back then, as it chiefly made motors used in washing machines, according to local media reports.<\/p>\n

But as profits fell in an increasingly saturated market, pressuring the company\u2019s share price after its 2012 initial public offering in Shenzhen that raised 1.6 billion yuan, diversification was on Wang\u2019s mind. <\/p>\n

Then in 2016, Wang’s company acquired optical device maker Innolight Technology, founded by Zhongji Innolight’s current Chairman and CEO Liu, in a 2.8 billion-yuan deal. The startup\u2014Google Capital\u2019s first<\/a>-ever investment in China\u2014still needed additional funding to sustain its research efforts. Liu, an engineer educated in China\u2019s prestigious Tsinghua University and the Georgia Institute of Technology in the U.S., became CEO of the merged entity in 2017 and chairman in 2023. The firm also changed its name to Zhongji Innolight in 2017. Wang\u2019s son, Wang Xiaodong, is a company director and executive vice president. <\/p>\n

Innolight Technology counted Google as a client as early as 2011, as the American tech giant was building more data centers across the world, according to an article<\/a> put out this October by Tsinghua University to honor its alumni. Working closely with Google probably helped the firm hone its tech over the years, says Macquarie Capital\u2019s Lai.<\/p>\n

Yet Shen Meng, Beijing-based managing director of boutique investment bank Chanson & Co., cautions in messages sent via WeChat that demand for Zhongji Innolight\u2019s products may not be there forever. Concerns over AI companies\u2019 lofty valuations are mounting, and their investment in related infrastructure may not pay off.<\/p>\n

Amid the rivalry between China and the U.S., CMB International highlighted geopolitical and tariff uncertainties as key risks in a November research note. Macquarie Capital\u2019s Lai believes such risks can be managed, as the company supplies overseas clients from its factory in Thailand, which started operation in 2022.<\/p>\n

Lai sees an emerging technology as potentially disrupting Zhongji Innolight\u2019s business. So-called co-packaged optics (CPO), which involves bundling several optical transceivers together to improve performance, might reduce the need for the actual product. But he stresses that the tech \u2013 currently led by Nasdaq-listed Broadcom \u2013 is still at an early stage. \u201cIf that happens, which I don\u2019t believe will in the near term, then it will impact the transceiver makers,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artificial intelligence has propelled fortunes of U.S. tycoons like Google parent Alphabet\u2019s Sergey Brin and Nvidia\u2019s Jensen Huang…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172771,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,7688,95224,95223,95226,95225,7822,95227,61,95222,60,80,95221],"class_list":{"0":"post-172770","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-billionaires","12":"tag-china-ai","13":"tag-china-billionaires","14":"tag-china-data-center","15":"tag-china-optics","16":"tag-google-ai","17":"tag-google-data-center","18":"tag-ie","19":"tag-innolight","20":"tag-ireland","21":"tag-technology","22":"tag-zhongji-innolight"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}