(Yicai Global) March 27 -- Chinese artificial intelligence chip designer Cambricon Technologies has applied to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Star Market for innovative science and tech startups with hopes of raising CNY2.8 billion (USD396 million).

The Beijing-based firm will issue up to 40.1 million shares, according to its preliminary prospectus. It will use the money raised to develop a new generation of and systems for cloud training, inference and edge-end artificial intelligence, and to supplement liquidity, it added.

Cambricon lost CNY1.2 billion last year on revenue of CNY444 million (USD62.7 million). Its research and development spending was more than double operating income.

Brothers Chen Tianshi and Chen Yunji co-founded Cambricon in 2016 to make chips that help smart servers and other devices better understand human behavior. Chen Tianshi focuses on AI algorithm research while Chen Yunji specializes in chips, according to The Paper. The pair hired Citic Securities to advise on an initial public offering in December 2019.

Chen Tianshi is the firm's actual controller and largest shareholder with 33.2 percent of equity pre IPO. The firm's second-biggest shareholder is Beijing Zhongke Suanyuan Technology Development, which is owned by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Computing Technology and holds 18.24 percent. Cambricon has 32 direct individual and institutional shareholders at present, the prospectus shows.

Editor: James Boynton