videopokercomputergames| Is the computing power narrative of Hongbo and Zhou Weiwei's "breaking up" AI bull stocks over?
Every reporter Yang Hui and Li Shaoting, every editor Liang Xiao
Hongbo shares (rights protection) whose share prices rose sharply last year due to the leap to the computing power vault.VideopokercomputergamesNow it also falls off the "cliff" because of arithmetic.
After the performance forecast changed from profit to lossVideopokercomputergamesThe relationship between Hongbo and Beijing InBev Mathematical Technology Co., Ltd., the core subsidiary of its computing business, has become increasingly strained. After the official account claimed that employees were unable to enter, issued a clarification notice, and the security guard "blocked the door", Hongbo shares fired the deputy general manager Zhou Yingyi in an announcement. However, Hongbo shares did not disclose who will be at the helm of InBev Mathematical Science in the future.
According to the exclusive information obtained by the Daily Business News from the staff of the customs department of Hongbo shares, after the board of directors is dismissed, Zhou Yingyi will not work in Hongbo shares, but will also leave InBev's math division, and the company will arrange a replacement. InBev math is currently in normal business.
It is worth noting that the core logic of the math story told by Hongbo shares lies in close cooperation with Nvidia and, further, access to the valuable supply of Nvidia AI chips. And Zhou Yingyi is the key person who connects Nvidia and Hongbo shares. InBev has signed a number of big math orders since last year and is still in delivery, and it is unclear whether the executive change will affect the delivery of subsequent orders. However, under the influence of the sales restrictions, the GPU configuration that Nvidia can sell to China has dropped again and again, and even if it does not break up with Zhou Yun, how Hongbo's computing business should be sustainable has become the focus of the market and regulators.
The company responds to personnel changes: it will find someone to replace Zhou Yingyi.
On the evening of April 19, Hongbo shares (SZ002229, 16.Videopokercomputergames.49 yuan, with a market capitalization of 82Videopokercomputergames(1.8 billion yuan) issued a notice saying that the company's board of directors agreed to dismiss Zhou Yingyi as deputy general manager and would no longer hold any position in the company after his dismissal. However, the announcement did not say whether Zhou would retain his position in the division of InBev, a subsidiary. According to the previous announcement, Zhou also held the post of general manager of InBev's math division.
After the announcement, there were two voices among investors. Some people think that it is good for Zhou to leave; others think that although the company stresses that dismissal will not have a significant impact on day-to-day production and business activities, as a key figure in maintaining the smart business, after the departure of Zhou Yun, Hongbo's calculation power supply may be uncertain. In addition, the operation of InBev's math division, which is in charge of smart computing, has also become the focus after Zhou's departure. After all, InBev still has a lot of big math orders in its hands, and Hongbo shares rely on this subsidiary to stand on the artificial intelligence front.
Judging from the first trading day after the disclosure, the reaction of the secondary market is not as extreme as it was a few days ago. On April 22, Hongbo shares opened more than 3 per cent lower, and the shares operated "underwater" throughout the day, closing down 4.85 per cent. It has not fallen to the limit now, nor has it turned red. Is it going or staying? After experiencing the sharp fluctuations in stock prices last week, such a trend will inevitably make shareholders confused.
With regard to the "breakup", Zhou Yun also gave an interview to the media recently. on the day the dismissal announcement was issued, she also said that she had no way to use the office to work normally and that related matters were still being dealt with. However, Hongbo shares have not disclosed any information other than the contents of the announcement.
Recently, the Daily Business News exclusively learned from the staff of the customs department of Hongbo shares that after the dismissal of the board of directors, Zhou Yingyi will not work in InBev's math division, which is currently in normal business; the company will arrange a replacement, but it is not clear more.
How the new management will take over InBev and its core team is unknown, but it must be difficult. After all, InBev Mathematical Division was founded on June 1, 2022. Zhou Yingyi has been at the helm since August of the same year, fully responsible for the preparation of the company, technology research and development, team building, business development and other work, single-handedly formed the company team. In addition, according to a dismissal list previously circulated online, in addition to Zhou Yingyi, the backbone of InBev's core math business (technology), such as Qiu Ling, Zhai Mengmeng, Li Runfeng and Meng Jianxiong, are also listed. In response, a reporter from the Daily Business News sent an interview email to Hongbo, asking whether InBev is currently under control. There was no reply as of press time, and Zhou himself did not reply to the relevant questions.
The industry and investors are concerned about InBev, on the one hand, they are curious about the history of the two sides'"turning their faces", but they are more worried about whether Hongbo's arithmetic narrative can continue.
The reporter noted that at present, some of the large orders of InBev's math division are still in the implementation period.
Among them, InBev Digital signed a "cloud service agreement" with Beijing Baichuan Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Baichuan Intelligent) at the end of last year. According to the announcement at that time, the total amount of the order involved was about 1.382 billion yuan and the fulfillment period was from January 30, 2024 to January 31, 2027. During the cooperation period, the two parties will settle the actual fee every month according to the agreement, and Invid shall deliver the Nvidia DGX/HGX H series smart servers in two batches no later than January 30, 2024 and April 30, 2024, respectively.
In addition, according to Hongbo's announcement last October, InBev signed a procurement agreement of nearly 1 billion yuan with Beijing Jingneng International Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Beijing Jingneng): Beijing Jingneng commissioned InBev Mathematical Center for construction planning, equipment procurement and deployment tuning services. The overall size of the center is expected to be no less than 2000PFLOPS, and the delivery of the first phase of 1024PFLOPS computing equipment will be completed by October 31, 2023. The construction requirement of the second phase is 1024PFLOPS, and whether or not to start and the start date shall be further determined by both parties according to the needs of the project.
As of press time, Hongbo shares have not responded to questions such as the advance of orders, the intention of major customers to renew their contracts and the progress of arithmetic delivery. In response to questions from investors, Hongbo shares only said that it would fulfill its obligations if it met the disclosure standards.
Before the termination of equity incentives, the two sides "break up" early warning?
It is not uncommon to fire senior executives. Why are Zhou Yun and Hongbo shares pushed to the forefront of public opinion?
In retrospect, the reason why Hongbo shares became a powerful stock last year is closely related to the "close relationship" it has repeatedly stressed with Nvidia. Among them, the most core competitiveness is that Hongbo shares can obtain the scarce supply of GPU from Invid.
Zhou Yun, a former senior vice president of 36 krypton, played a key role in getting in touch with giant Nvidia. According to her earlier disclosure to the Daily Business News, the business began with her contact with Nvidia, and Hongbo shares repeatedly stressed the importance of Weekly to the computing business in their announcements. It is said that its "international education background, professional experience and business resources enable the company's artificial intelligence-related business to land quickly."
At present, the reason for the "feud" between the two is not clear, but the "dislike gap" is indeed a sign for a long time.
On April 16, a screenshot circulated on social media said that InBev had sacked some employees, including Zhou Yun. Over the next few days, various kinds of news came out frequently, such as InBev official Weibo said that all staff could not enter the office space and then "deleted in a second"; the official Wechat issued a clarification notice; the office was photographed with security guards "blocking the door" and so on.
At noon on April 17, a person related to Hongbo shares responded to the Daily Economic News that Zhou Yingyi, deputy general manager of Hongbo shares (former) at that time, was only suspended, did not be dismissed, and did not meet the disclosure standards.
On April 18, Zhou Yingyi did not appear at the scene of the previously publicly publicized event. The reporter tried to go to the office space disclosed on the official website of Yingbo Mathematical Science, but was stopped by the property when he could not go upstairs.
More strangely, on April 8 this year, InBev changed its residence from its current office address to Room 207 on the second floor of Wanghai Building, 10 Xisanhuan Middle Road, Haidian District, Beijing, according to data from a third-party platform. On the afternoon of April 17, a reporter from the Daily Economic News came to the second floor of Block B of Wanghai Building, but the second floor was empty and there was a sign "President's Office" on the door of Room 207.
Comprehensive on-site bulletin board information, which is managed by Haidian District Management Committee of Zhongguancun Science and Technology Park, was once an "incubation base", known as "Golden seed Venture Valley". A reporter from the Daily Economic News, as a consultant, learned from the property aspects of the park that due to too many companies with registered addresses in the incubation base, the market supervision and management department had visited many times for inspection.
The reporter found that at present, the office address of InBev is still in the Fortune Financial Center marked on the official website, and the name of InBev is marked on the 53rd floor of the front desk of the office building, but the reporter was stopped by the property when he could not go upstairs.
Looking back, on September 27 last year, Hongbo suddenly announced that it had examined and passed the "bill on terminating the 2023 restricted stock incentive plan" and unanimously agreed to terminate the company's restricted stock incentive plan. As for the reason, according to Hongbo shares at that time, affected by multiple factors such as changes in the macro environment and increased uncertainty in global development, the company made a decision on the basis of active communication with all parties, taking into account the overall rhythm planning and time point of the equity incentive program.
As Hongbo canceled the equity incentive, Zhou lost the opportunity to acquire 1 million restricted shares at a low price. Just when the contradiction between the two sides was put on the table in April this year, Zhou Yingyi also posted in his personal "moments" that "inexplicably lost the greatest single wealth in my life", "as a professional manager, it is my duty to abide by the rules." it is my duty to maintain professionalism.
It is worth noting that while the internal contradictions have become increasingly obvious, the control of Hongbo shares has also changed. On February 28 this year, Hongbo shares announced that due to contract disputes, the shares held by the company's shareholders Henan Yutai Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huitai Holdings) and Henan Huiyi Trading Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Huiyi Trading Co., Ltd.) were judicially deducted, and the proportion of shares held by Yutai Holdings and its joint actor Huiyi Trading was reduced from 3.36% to 0.65%. After the judicial deduction, the controlling shareholder of the company changed from Yutai holding and Huiyi Trade to no controlling shareholder, and the actual controller changed from Li Xiaolin, Yang Kai and Mao Wei to no actual controller.
The company's performance has changed unexpectedly, and the recent overall stock price trend is under pressure.
In addition to talking about personal losses, Zhou Yun's other "moments" message is also worth paying attention to.
On the morning of April 13, Zhou Yun sent a "moments" message: "Thank you for your concern. I do things, not bookkeeping." A reporter from the Daily Business News noted that the day before the release of this moments, Hongbo Co., Ltd. announced a revision of the performance forecast.
On the evening of April 12, Hongbo shares released the revised announcement of the 2023 results notice, saying that the company's net profit was expected to be 37.4 million yuan to 56.1 million yuan. As the original accounting time of equipment sales revenue has not been recognized by the auditor, the net profit in 2023 is expected to be corrected to a loss of 50 million to 58 million yuan, deducting a loss of 65 million to 75 million yuan after deducting non-net profit.
According to Hongbo's statement in the amendment announcement, InBev started cooperation with Beijing Jingneng on the purchase of equipment for the construction of the Intelligence Center in 2023. Hongbo shares have received the first contract payment of 499.8 million yuan from Beijing Jingneng as of December 31, 2023. Hongbo shares have delivered some of the equipment and obtained phased equipment acceptance confirmation.
However, Hongbo shares 2023 auditor Shanghui Accounting firm (Special General Partnership) believes that Hongbo shares should not recognize revenue until all the equipment for the project has been delivered and the final deployment has been completed, and the related income will be deducted from the operating income. Therefore, the company corrects the financial indicators in the performance forecast.
The news of the "change of face" of the performance immediately aroused regulatory attention.
On the evening of April 15, Hongbo disclosed that it had received a warning letter from Fujian Securities Regulatory Bureau; on the evening of the same day, a letter of concern from the exchange also arrived. The letter of concern directly points out that the revised announcement of Hongbo's performance forecast is significantly different from the original performance forecast, and the nature of profit and loss has changed, suspected of violating the relevant regulations.
In response, Xu Feng, director of Shanghai Jiucheng Law firm, told the Daily Economic News that he bought shares between January 11, 2024 and April 13, 2024, and investors who sold or held Hongbo shares after April 13, 2024 can file claims.
In fact, before this performance "changed face", Hongbo shares of the calculation business has been a hidden worry. According to Zhou Yun's introduction in an exclusive interview with science and technology media in April this year, InBev won nearly 3 billion yuan in computing power in half a year, and big AI model manufacturers such as Baichuan Intelligence and MiniMax are its customers.
However, judging from the contract signed with Bai Chuan Intelligence, the cooperation between the two sides is as follows: InBev provides Bai Chuan Intelligence with all the computing power and resources, as well as supporting software, applications, and technical services of the agreed scale of the Nvidia Intelligent Computing Server. The computing power scale and performance provided by a single intelligent computing server is not lower than that of all the Nvidia H series 8-card intelligent computing servers.
Since last year, the configuration of AI chips sold by Nvidia to domestic enterprises has dropped again and again. A100, A800, H100, H800 and other products are all on the prohibited list, and the "special version" launched for the domestic market has not caused too much splash. In this context, a lot of international computing power is jokingly called "high price and low configuration" by people in the industry.
In the face of the problems raised by investors, such as "the company has considered supporting domestic computing power, away from foreign computing power" and "Invida launched a special version of chips for the Chinese market, the market response is relatively dull due to performance". Hongbo shares only gave the reply that "the company maintains cooperative relations with a number of excellent enterprises at home and abroad" and "will comprehensively consider the benefits of the use of all kinds of hardware equipment for equipment procurement".
It is worth noting that the recent overall stock price trend of Hongbo is under pressure. On April 23, Hongbo shares closed at 16.49 yuan per share, up only 0.12%, a day after its share price plunged 4.85%. Looking back on the previous time, Hongbo shares once reached 31.50 yuan per share in intraday trading on March 19.