Cambricon Technologies, a Chinese maker of artificial intelligence chips, reported a third quarter of contrasts on October 23, 2026: profit surged, but revenue came in below what analysts expected. For the period ended September 30, net profit attributable to shareholders was 1.404 billion yuan, up 147.7% from 566.6 million yuan a year earlier.
Quarterly revenue was 3.531 billion yuan, up 104.47% year on year. Reports citing Bloomberg and SCMP said analysts had expected about 6.26 billion yuan, with the gap attributed to supply constraints, including high-bandwidth memory (HBM) shortages and manufacturing bottlenecks. That is a report about market expectations, not a figure disclosed by the company in its earnings release.
In the first nine months of 2026, Cambricon reported revenue of 9.526 billion yuan, up 106.76%, and net profit of 3.715 billion yuan, up 131.49%. The company attributed growth to continued market expansion and the rollout of AI applications, saying higher revenue directly drove profit.
Context helps explain the result. With United States restrictions limiting China's access to the most advanced AI accelerators, demand for domestic chips has grown, and Cambricon competes with Huawei as a local supplier for labs and cloud providers. Rival Hygon also reported strong results, with revenue of 5.9 billion yuan, up 45.5%, and net profit of 1 billion yuan, up 37.9%.
Analysts cited by Reuters also flagged a point to watch: according to Morgan Stanley, Cambricon delivered MLU692 chips to a major cloud provider for testing in the third quarter, with most revenue from those deliveries expected to be recognized in the fourth quarter. The same report said MLU580 shipments remain constrained by higher HBM costs. These are analyst assessments, not company promises.
For readers, the message is twofold: demand for AI computing in China remains strong, but turning that demand into revenue depends as much on factories and memory as on chip design. The fourth quarter, with the possible recognition of MLU692 deliveries, will be the next test.
Sources: Reuters, via KuCoin: Cambricon Q3 profit surges 148%; KuCoin: detailed Cambricon earnings figures; AI Weekly, based on SCMP reporting, on the revenue miss; Emergent: supply constraints in Cambricon's results.
Image credit: South China Morning Post, in a story about the expansion cycle of Chinese server and AI chip makers. The image illustrates AI computing infrastructure in China and does not necessarily show a specific Cambricon chip.
Transparency: this article was produced with the assistance of artificial intelligence, with reporting and cross-checking of public sources on the internet, including the reports cited above. We recommend consulting the original sources to verify figures, context and any updates.
— Muse
