On September 20, 2026, Jingneng Microelectronics (Zhejiang Jingneng Microelectronics) announced the completion of a CNY 630 million Series C funding round. This marks its fifth funding round since its establishment four years ago, bringing its cumulative financing scale to nearly CNY 2 billion.
| The New Energy Narrative Is Becoming Fiercely Competitive
Over the past decade, the main theme of power semiconductors has been "domestic substitution + new energy." This narrative has advanced rapidly, yet it has also been exhausting.
By 2025, domestic suppliers had captured over 80% of the domestic market share for main drive IGBT modules in new energy passenger vehicles. BYD Semiconductor firmly held the first position with an installed capacity of around 27%, followed closely by StarPower Semiconductor, CRRC Times Electric, and Silan Microelectronics. As the story goes this far, the dividends of the narrative are peaking: automotive-grade IGBTs have entered a mature stage, price wars have escalated from discrete devices to modules, high-end high-voltage (3300V/6500V) IGBTs still rely on imports, while the mid-to-low-end market is already structurally over-supplied.
The new energy sector has pushed the "volume" of power semiconductors to the extreme, but it has also driven the "price" down to the floor.
When everyone rushes into the same track, capital naturally becomes picky—this explains why a large number of semiconductor projects saw valuation corrections and "financing difficulties" became an industry keyword in 2024-2025. Precisely because of this, Jingneng's ability to secure a Series C round against the trend in 2026 stands out remarkably.
| AI Turns "Power Supply" into a First Principle
The real variable comes from the computing power side.
The power of AI racks is leaping from the traditional 20kW to 100kW, or even 1MW. Accordingly, the power supply voltage is climbing from 12V to 48V, and further evolving towards 800V High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC). Applying a 350kW load on 48V would drive the current to over 7000 amps—resulting in heavy cables, high losses, and insufficient space in the machine room. Upgrading to 800V drastically reduces the current to about 1/17 of the original level.
The ultimate solution is the Solid State Transformer (SST): replacing traditional iron cores with Silicon Carbide (SiC) power electronics to convert 10kV medium-voltage AC directly into 800V DC in a single step, pushing system efficiency to 98.5% and halving the equipment volume. NVIDIA has established it as the core equipment for the next-generation 800V power supply architecture; Google, Microsoft, and Meta, along with giants like ABB, Siemens, Eaton, and Sungrow Power Supply, are also going all-in through the OCP alliance and direct investments.
Whichever GPU wins, power supply remains an indispensable hard requirement. Power supply and distribution are no longer just ancillary facilities for data centers; they are the "invisible infrastructure" that determines whether computing power can be deployed stably, efficiently, and at scale.
The market size of this new narrative is being re-evaluated, and the data points clearly indicate that power semiconductors are being "re-priced" by AI. The old narrative competed on "who can substitute imports more cheaply," while the new narrative competes on "who can withstand megawatt-level, highly reliable, and high-frequency isolated power supply systems."
A set of figures illustrates the intensity of this re-evaluation: the global power semiconductor market is expected to exceed USD 62 billion in 2026, a year-on-year growth of 11.7%, with over 60% of the increment coming from third-generation devices like IGBTs/SiCs; the Chinese market is approximately USD 21 billion, accounting for 33.8% of the global total, yet the local supply rate remains below 30%, leaving significant room for import substitution. More crucial is the structural shift—the penetration rate of SiC on 800V platforms leaps from 18% in 2025 to 27% in 2026, moving from "optional" to "mandatory"; AI data centers already account for about 16% of downstream power semiconductor applications, representing the fastest-growing new curve. Extending the timeline, the global SiC power semiconductor scale will grow from approximately USD 6.7 billion in 2025 to USD 25 billion in 2032 (a CAGR of 21%), while the SST market is projected to expand from about CNY 10 billion in 2026 to over CNY 1 trillion by 2035, a hundredfold increase in a decade. Notably, SiC devices account for 30%-35% of SST system costs, meaning the price reduction curve of SiC is the critical switch for the popularization of SSTs.
| A Company with "Automotive-Grade Genes and an AI Appetite"
Founded in June 2022, Jingneng Microelectronics is the "Power and AI Semiconductor Industry Platform" under Geely Technology Group—note this attribute; from its inception, it has not been merely a power semiconductor company, but is defined with the dual label of "Power + AI."
Its strategy operates on three levels, perfectly corresponding to three keywords of the industry shift:
1. Technology reuse, rather than starting from scratch. Jingneng started with automotive-grade SiC modules, and its product matrix now includes automotive-grade power modules, AI-grade SST modules, and embedded SSCB modules. The logic is: transferring the high reliability and extreme conversion efficiency accumulated from automotive-grade applications to data centers, aerospace, and controlled nuclear fusion. The same "power control" core is reused across different scenarios.
2. Dual ecosystems, rather than single-point breakthroughs. The major shareholders of Jingneng include Geely Technology Group, Geely Capital, Qianjiang Motorcycle, and Li Shufu's personal shareholding platform; meanwhile, it has formed a joint venture with CHINT Group to enter the photovoltaic, energy storage, and low-voltage electrical semiconductor sectors. This forms a dual validation system of "Automotive + Energy"—transferring automotive-grade reliability experience to new energy, while energy scenarios feed back into automotive-grade costs, creating growth resilience far beyond that of similar startups.
3. Building capacity, rather than just focusing on design. Jingneng has deployed three intelligent bases in Hangzhou (Yuhang), Taizhou (Wenling), and Jiaxing (Xiuzhou). The first phase in Xiuzhou has an annual capacity of 600,000 sets of automotive-grade power modules, utilizing an "island automation" flexible production line. In 2023, its "High-Reliability Advanced Automotive Power Chips and Modules" was recognized as a national-level innovation project.
Jingneng is a microcosm: instead of competing fiercely in standard IGBT devices, it has secured a high-value position in "modules + system-level power supply solutions," leveraging industrial capital endorsement to exchange for automotive validation cycles.
| Who Is Grabbing Tickets for the "Power Supply Foundation"?
Jingneng is not a lone traveler.
At the poker table of power semiconductors, players are differentiating into three categories.
The first category comprises automotive-grade leaders (vertical integration faction), represented by BYD Semiconductor and CRRC Times Electric. They rely on "self-supply + external supply" of high-voltage IGBT/SiC modules to establish their foothold, and while externally supplying SiC modules to automakers, they are tentatively entering the data center market.
The second category includes device and IDM leaders, including StarPower Semiconductor, Silan Microelectronics, China Resources Micro, and United Nova Technology (UNT). They focus on full-category scale manufacturing of IGBTs/SiCs—among them, UNT's SiC ranks first domestically and in the global top five, while Silan Microelectronics' SiC has been mass-produced for AI computing center power supplies.
The third category consists of power supply and distribution specialists, such as Wingtech/Nexperia, Sungrow Power Supply, Infineon, and Rohm, positioning themselves in PSUs and SSTs with MOSFET/SiC modules; Nexperia has positioned itself as the "Leader in Semiconductor Energy Foundation for AIDC," with SST samples planned for launch in 2027.
Jingneng's differentiation lies in the fact that it is neither a pure device manufacturer nor a pure system integrator, but a "power supply solution provider" equipped with an automotive-grade reliability system. In system-level new categories like SST/SSCB, module packaging, reliability validation, and automotive-grade quality control are precisely its inherent advantages.
However, the risks are equally clear: the overcapacity and price reduction cycle of SiC has not ended, the transition of automotive-grade technology to AI power supply has a run-in period, and the commercialization of SSTs generally has to wait until around 2027—Jingneng's story is a bet on the time window.
| The Industrial Logic Behind the CNY 630 Million Funding
Jingneng's completion of the Series C round, with a cumulative financing of nearly CNY 2 billion over four years since its establishment (Gaorong Capital led the first round in 2022 and the Series A in 2023; the Series B in October 2024 introduced CNY 500 million from Xiuzhou Financial Holdings; the Series A+ included Wenling State-owned Capital Investment and Yuhang State-owned Capital Investment), demonstrates the recognition of its path by industrial players and local governments.
In projects dominated by financial VCs, the names of investors are a showcase of fundraising capabilities and are usually listed prominently. Jingneng did not mention a single word about them in this round, which highly suggests they are strategic players in the industrial chain or local industrial funds—the logic of such capital is not "exiting with multiple returns," but "holding the power supply foundation in our own scenarios tightly in hand." This fits perfectly with Jingneng's positioning as a "Power + AI Industry Platform": the money from the Series C is not buying financial options, but supply chain seats.
Capital is voting with its feet: when financial investors exit and strategic investors enter, it often signifies that a track has moved from the "storytelling phase" into the "industrial consolidation phase."
| Three Propositions to Be Verified
Jingneng's CNY 630 million Series C round is a cross-section of the power semiconductor industry's shift from the "new energy narrative" to the "AI power supply narrative." Whether it holds true leaves three trackable suspense points:
Penetration curve: Can the penetration of SiC in data center power supply replicate its slope in 800V automotive applications (27% in 2026)? Can SSTs achieve commercial volume production on schedule in 2027? Second curve: Can Jingneng truly run through AI/aerospace/nuclear fusion scenarios beyond automotive-grade, or will it remain in a "concept matrix"? Emergence of investors: Who is the hidden strategic party? Is it further shareholding by the Geely faction, or the entry of a cloud provider/energy giant to secure a position in the power supply chain?
Regardless of the answers, one fact has been rewritten: power semiconductors are no longer just supporting actors in new energy; they are becoming the "invisible infrastructure" of the AI era. Whoever solidifies this foundation first will hold the lifeline of power supply for the next generation of computing power competition.
Data sources: Public forecasts from industry research institutions (IIM, TrendForce, Yole, China Commerce Industry Research Institute, etc.), and public reports from Tencent News, Sina Finance, China Economic News Network, the official website of Geely Technology Group, China Automotive Suppliers Network, etc., as of September 2026. This article is an industrial analysis and does not constitute investment advice.