Recently, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced the seventh batch of National “Little Giant” Specialized, Refined, Characteristic, Innovative (SRCI) Enterprises, with Axera Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (Axera), a leading AI chip design company, making the list. This national-level recognition represents authoritative acknowledgment of Axera’s deep technological expertise, exceptional innovation capabilities, strong market position, and significant development potential in the AI chip sector. It also signifies that the company has emerged as an essential backbone force in the industry, driving breakthroughs in key core technologies, strengthening industrial chain resilience, and enabling intelligent transformation across various sectors.
The National “Little Giant” SRCI Enterprise certification system is a key government initiative designed to address “chokepoint” challenges and strengthen the resilience and security of industrial and supply chains. This policy aims to cultivate a group of “vanguard” enterprises that maintain long-term focus on niche markets, demonstrate exceptional innovation capabilities, master critical core technologies, and achieve leading market positions. The program is regarded as a barometer of high-quality industry development and a breeding ground for “hidden champions.” The selection criteria are extremely rigorous, evaluating whether enterprises are specialized, refined, characteristic, and innovative. This represents a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of corporate strength and development potential. Successfully joining the “Little Giant” list signifies that an enterprise has become a crucial component in national strategic support efforts to address industrial gaps and strengthen supply chains.
Axera’s growth trajectory embodies the essence of SRCI “Little Giants”—not pursuing comprehensiveness but focusing on strengthening niche sectors and mastering core technologies. Since its inception, Axera has continuously focused on the development and mass production of high-performance, low-power AI processor chips. The company’s two proprietary core technologies—AXProton AI-ISP and AXNeutron mixed precision NPU—provide strong support for AI application innovation. AXProton AI-ISP utilizes pixel-level AI processing technology to comprehensively enhance imaging quality across various complex application scenarios, while AXNeutron mixed precision NPU employs a multi-threaded heterogeneous multi-core design to efficiently support multiple neural networks, establishing a solid foundation for large model applications at the edge and terminal sides.
Through forward-looking strategic deployment and continuously advancing proprietary technologies, Axera delivers cost-effective AI solutions to industry clients. The company has achieved large-scale commercial deployment across On-device Computing, Smart Vehicle, and Edge AI Inference markets, winning broad customer trust and recognition.
Looking ahead, Axera will continue to uphold the SRCI spirit by focusing on its core business and driving technological innovation. The company will advance toward developing edge and terminal AI chips with more sophisticated processes and higher performance, and toward accelerating the development and deployment of advanced AI chip products to empower intelligent transformation and upgrading across various industries. Working collaboratively with upstream and downstream partners in the industrial chain, Axera will help build a more prosperous and healthy domestic AI chip ecosystem, providing robust computing infrastructure and perception engines for the high-quality development of China’s digital economy.
Being honored as a national “Little Giant” SRCI enterprise represents not only an important milestone in Axera’s development journey but also signals that the edge and terminal intelligence sector of China’s semiconductor industry has advanced from a follower position toward greater competitiveness, ushering in a new era of “China-defined” innovation. For Axera, this achievement marks a new starting point to help define the future of China’s edge and terminal intelligence industry.
