On July 13th, the stock price trajectories of the two leading large language model companies showed further divergence.

MiniMax shares opened lower and extended their decline, at one point falling over 13%, pushing its market capitalization below HK$75 billion and setting a new recent low.

In contrast, shares of Knowledge Atlas surged nearly 12%, with its market cap surpassing HK$800 billion.

Having debuted on the market around the same time earlier this year as twin stars of the AI model sector, the two companies now see a market value gap exceeding tenfold just six months later.

MiniMax Faces Persistent Pressure

MiniMax shares fell over 13% at the open today, continuing the downtrend that began with the expiry of its post-IPO lock-up period on July 9th.

That lock-up expiry involved approximately 153 million shares, representing about 48.9% of the total share capital.

The stock closed down 17.98% on July 9th, erasing over HK$20 billion in market value in a single day, and fell a further 9.68% the following day, resulting in a cumulative two-day drop of 25.92%.

On July 10th, the day after the lock-up expiry, the company announced a combined fundraising of approximately HK$16 billion through a new share placement and the issuance of convertible bonds.

The placement price of HK$268 represented a discount of roughly 9.89% from the previous trading day's close.

Analysts note that the dual pressures of a significant increase in share supply from the lock-up expiry and the discounted share placement are the primary factors driving the ongoing share price decline.

Despite founder Yan Junjie's announcement that he would forego his salary until Artificial General Intelligence is achieved and would allocate 5% of his personal shares for team incentives and open-source support, market sentiment has not shown significant recovery.

Since June, MiniMax shares have fallen approximately 66% cumulatively and have retreated more than 80% from the all-time high of HK$1330 reached in March.

Knowledge Atlas Gains Momentum

In stark contrast to MiniMax's persistent weakness, Knowledge Atlas shares rose nearly 12% today.

Last Friday, July 10th, the stock had fallen nearly 20% in a post-lock-up expiry correction but rebounded swiftly afterwards.

On the news front, on July 11th, Knowledge Atlas founder Tang Jie issued an internal letter titled "The Giant Wave Has Arrived," outlining the company's perspective on the AGI competition.

The letter proposed a strategic focus over the next two years on four key engines: long-horizon tasks, autonomous agent systems, fully self-trained models, and ultimate safety governance.

Tang Jie stated in the letter that the trend from AGI to superintelligence is irreversible.

On the same day, JPMorgan Chase raised its price target for Knowledge Atlas from HK$2000 to HK$2400, marking its second upward revision within a week.

The bank noted that the company's approximately HK$31.4 billion raised from a recent placement would alleviate computational power supply bottlenecks.

On July 9th, Knowledge Atlas disclosed a placement of up to 19.78 million H-shares to six specific investors at HK$1588 per share, aiming to raise about HK$31.4 billion.

Since its market debut earlier this year, Knowledge Atlas shares have surged more than 13-fold, and in June 2026, the company entered the "trillion Hong Kong dollar club."

Reasons Behind the Split

The divergent paths of the two AI model stocks may be attributed to differences in their lock-up expiry structures.

MiniMax's lock-up expiry involved 153 million shares, or 48.9% of its share capital, with a relatively high proportion of financial investors facing greater pressure to exit.

In contrast, Knowledge Atlas's lock-up expiry involved approximately 25.68 million shares held by 11 cornerstone investors, representing about 5.76% of total capital, with nearly 70% of these cornerstone investors indicating a commitment to long-term holding.

At the beginning of the year, MiniMax listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange as the "first large model stock," soaring 109% on its debut day and briefly surpassing Knowledge Atlas in market value.

Six months later, the share price trajectories of the two companies have completely diverged.