Artificial intelligence has propelled fortunes of U.S. tycoons like Google parent Alphabet’s Sergey Brin and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang to stratospheric levels—and now it’s boosting Chinese moguls too. Wang Weixiu, founder of Zhongji Innolight, saw his own net worth jump 400% this year to $13 billion as demand for his company’s optical devices skyrockets.
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’s Billionaires List in March. Since then, Zhongji Innolight’s Shenzhen-listed shares have soared more than five times.
The surge recently minted a second billionaire from the company, which is based in Yantai, east China’s Shandong province. Zhongji Innolight’s 54-year-old Chairman and CEO Liu Sheng has seen his own net worth reach $2.7 billion, largely based on the executive’s 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. It plans to raise over $3 billion, according to Bloomberg News. The firm didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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 – including those on infrastructure like data centers – is projected to swell to $375 billion by the end of the year and top $3 trillion in 2030.
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 – which consists of tiny circuit boards and laser drivers — 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 – calling for reliable data transmission over longer distances.
Zhongji Innolight’s 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 “the global No.1 data center transceiver maker,” and said it “outperformed its peers” in the third quarter of 2025.
“Zhongji Innolight will continue to outgrow the industry and get more market share,” says Macquarie Capital’s Lai, pointing to the company’s current scale and continued demand for its products.
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.
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’t have much to do with high tech back then, as it chiefly made motors used in washing machines, according to local media reports.
But as profits fell in an increasingly saturated market, pressuring the company’s share price after its 2012 initial public offering in Shenzhen that raised 1.6 billion yuan, diversification was on Wang’s mind.
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—Google Capital’s first-ever investment in China—still needed additional funding to sustain its research efforts. Liu, an engineer educated in China’s 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’s son, Wang Xiaodong, is a company director and executive vice president.
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 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’s Lai.
Yet Shen Meng, Beijing-based managing director of boutique investment bank Chanson & Co., cautions in messages sent via WeChat that demand for Zhongji Innolight’s products may not be there forever. Concerns over AI companies’ lofty valuations are mounting, and their investment in related infrastructure may not pay off.
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’s Lai believes such risks can be managed, as the company supplies overseas clients from its factory in Thailand, which started operation in 2022.
Lai sees an emerging technology as potentially disrupting Zhongji Innolight’s 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 – currently led by Nasdaq-listed Broadcom – is still at an early stage. “If that happens, which I don’t believe will in the near term, then it will impact the transceiver makers,” he says.
