HURUN CHINA RICH LIST 2026

The Hurun Research Institute releases Hurun China Rich List 2026. This is the 28th edition of the list since 1999. 

AI powers ByteDance's Zhang Yiming to record fortune; DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng and AI chip maker Cambricon's Chen Tianshi storm into the Top 10

l  Hurun Research found 1,529 individuals with more than CNY 5 billion (equivalent to US$740 million), up 6.6% or 95 individuals from last year, an all-time record surpassing the previous peak of 1,460 set in 2021. The number of dollar billionaires rose 155 to 1,176, 176 more than in the US.

l  ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming, 43, reclaimed the title of 'Richest Person in China' for the second time with a record US$99.7bn, up 43%, on the back of ByteDance's aggressive push into AI — the 18th different Number One in the 28 years of the list.

l  'Bottled Water King' Zhong Shanshan, 72, slipped to second with US$61bn, down 23%, as Nongfu Spring's shares gave back a sixth of last year's peak and his vaccine maker Wantai Bio halved. Battery king Robin Zeng Yuqun, 58, moved up to third with US$57.3bn, up 17%, whilst Pony Ma Huateng, 55, dropped to fourth with US$51.5bn, down 26%.

l  China’s AI comes of age. DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, 41, was the sensation of the year, breaking straight in at Number 7 with US$41.7bn, and Chen Tianshi, also 41, of AI chipmaker Cambricon breaks into the Top 10 with US$30.5bn.

l  The three fastest risers of the year were Zhang Yiming, up US$33.8bn, Chen Jianhua & Fan Hongwei of chemicals-turned-shipbuilder group Hengli, up US$18.3bn, and Lin Tsung-Chi, 85, of Taiwan-based components maker King Slide, up US$15.7bn.

l  263 new faces, down from 376 last year and from the 838 peak in 2021, led by Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek and Wang Xingxing, 36, of robot maker Unitree with US$10.3bn. AI large model founders had a strong debut, led by Liu Debing, 49, & Tang Jie, 49, of Zhipu with US$5.9bn and US$4.1bn, Chen Weiliang, 50, of MetaX with US$5.6bn, and Yan Junjie, 37, of MiniMax with US$3.4bn.

l  A two-speed economy. The AI economy — semiconductors, large models and embodied AI — boomed so hard that the list broke the record for the number of rich list entrants, whilst the old economy retreated: property wealth has fallen on every list since the Evergrande crisis broke in 2021, retail for nearly as long, and this year even the consumer kings gave back part of last year's record gains.

l  Preferred places to live. Shenzhen took the crown for the first time ever, with 177 individuals, up 30, on the back of its semiconductor, AI and robotics clusters. Shanghai was second with 161, up 9, and Beijing third with 140, down 6. Hong Kong (102, +3 — its first time over 100) and Hangzhou (88, +4) made up the Big 5, followed by Suzhou and Guangzhou tied on 61, and Taipei on 58.

l  Women make up 23.2% of the Hurun list, up 0.8 percentage points. 70% are self-made, led by Zhou Qunfei of Lens Technology with US$19bn, who took the crown back after 11 years.

l  The average age on the list is 61. The oldest self-made entrepreneur is Li Ka-shing, 98; the youngest is Zhang Junjie, 31, founder of tea-drinks chain Chagee.

l  Entrepreneurs with a political 'voice' made up 5.7% of the list, down from 6% last year and close to the historic low of 5.1% in 2021 (the high was 38% in 2004). NPC delegates unchanged at 44, CPPCC delegates up 2 to 43.

(27 October 2026, Shanghai) The Hurun Research Institute today released the Hurun China Rich List 2026, a ranking of the richest individuals in China. The cut-off was CNY 5 billion (equivalent to US$740 million), and wealth calculations were as of 1 September 2026. This is the 28th year of the list.

This is a translation from the original Chinese-language press release, which can be found on www.hurun.net.

Hurun Research found 1,529 individuals with more than CNY 5 billion, up 6.6% or 95 individuals from last year. Total wealth increased 7% to US$4.8tn, back to within a tenth of the 2021 record of US$5.3tn. The number of dollar billionaires rose 155 to 1,176 — 176 more than in the US — just shy of the record 1,185 set in 2021. 785 saw their wealth increase, of which 263 were new faces. 911 saw their wealth decrease or remain unchanged, of which 167 dropped off the list. 1,282 live in mainland China across 138 cities, 217 in Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, and 30 live outside of Greater China. The Top 3 cities with the highest concentration of entrepreneurs on the list were Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing. The average age was 61.

In the year to the 1 September cut-off, the Nasdaq rose 21%, the Shenzhen Component 8% and the Shanghai Composite 2.7%, whilst the Hang Seng fell 1%. The renminbi strengthened 6% against the US dollar.

For the stories of the Top 100, see Appendix A, and for the stories of some of the other big names this year, see Appendix B.

Rupert Hoogewerf, Hurun Report Chairman and Chief Researcher, said:

“China's richest have broken through to a new record: over 1,500 individuals, up 6%, surpassing the previous record of 1,460 set in 2021. This year's gains were polarised — entrepreneurs in AI, semiconductors and robotics surged ahead, whilst those in consumer, real estate and traditional manufacturing saw their wealth shrink — a two-speed economy. Remarkably, the record was set in a year when the majority of the list saw their wealth go down: 911 fell or stood still, against just 785 risers. The number of dollar billionaires rose to 1,176, more than the US.”

“263 new faces joined the list this year, led by DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng, who went straight into the Top 10 with US$41.7bn. The 41-year-old has become the figurehead of Chinese AI on the back of DeepSeek's global impact. Liang was not on last year's list because DeepSeek previously presented itself as a research lab. This year the market priced the lab at over US$50bn. New faces came mainly from semiconductors, AI, robotics and industrial products.”

“This was the year 'Made in China 2025' came home — the ten-year plan to lead in ten key technologies. Five of this year's Top 10 and 60% of the Top 100 make their money from the sectors it targeted, from semiconductors and AI to robotics and new energy. The new five-year plan, which began this year, doubles down on the same bet — naming 'AI Plus', quantum technology, biomanufacturing, embodied intelligence, commercial aerospace and 6G among its frontier industries. The people on this list are its delivery mechanism.”

“Zhu Yiming is the man of the moment: ChangXin Memory, the chipmaker he founded just ten years ago, listed in July and peaked at over half a trillion US dollars — overtaking ByteDance and Tencent and more than double Moutai's US$240bn. China's most valuable company has travelled a long way, from a baijiu maker to a memory-chip maker. Of the once unbeatable internet players, BAT is now just T: Baidu's Robin Li is out of the Top 100 for the first time since 2004, Jack Ma is out of the Top 10, and the vacuum is being filled by ByteDance's Zhang Yiming, ChangXin's Zhu Yiming and Zhongji Innolight's Wang Weixiu — whose optical-module maker has run to a US$150bn market cap — the silicon, optics and models behind the AI cycle. Chen Tianshi of AI-chip designer Cambricon, now worth just under US$100bn, broke into the Top 10. Behind the chips, a full-blown memory supercycle — prices up some 70% in a single quarter — and an AI datacentre shortage lifted the whole computing-power chain.”

“Zhang Yiming reclaimed the title of China's richest man for the second time with a record US$100bn, up 43%, almost all of it on the back of AI: ByteDance's Doubao is China's most-used AI assistant. AI is the biggest single wealth engine on this list: 160 Hurun rich listers — one in ten — now make their money from AI. Tokens are the new steel: China now consumes hundreds of trillions of AI tokens a day, more than any other country. Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek debuted straight into seventh place with US$41.7bn — and behind him a whole generation of model builders arrived at once: Yang Zhilin of Moonshot AI with US$7bn, up 544%; Liu Debing and Tang Jie of Zhipu with US$5.9bn and US$4.1bn; Yan Junjie of MiniMax with US$3.4bn; and Chen Weiliang of GPU designer MetaX with US$5.6bn. These are the people carrying the country's hopes of tech supremacy.”

“'Embodied intelligence' — AI with a body — entered large-scale commercial application this year, and this list is where you see it: 80 Hurun rich listers now make their money from robotics. Frank Wang Tao of DJI, the drone pioneer who has mentored much of Shenzhen's robotics scene, remains the sector's biggest fortune with US$16.4bn. The sensation of the year was Wang Xingxing, 36, of humanoid-robot maker Unitree, who debuted with US$10.3bn as the year's second-highest new face after taking Unitree public in August — the stock jumped 629% on its first day, briefly valuing the company at US$66bn and Wang's own stake at nearly US$20bn — his wealth has almost halved since that IPO peak, with the company settling around US$35bn. Notable new faces include Deng Taihua of humanoid maker AgiBot with US$3.1bn, Guo Yandong of AI2 Robotics, Zhou Yong of robotic-hand maker LinkerHand and Gao Jiyang, 34, of Galaxea AI, whilst Qian Dongqi of Ecovacs and James Zhou Jian of UBTech represent the established guard. When the robot era fully arrives, China is unlikely to lose its lead.”

“The surprise of the year for me was Chen Jianhua & Fan Hongwei of Hengli, who broke into the Top 10 for the first time with US$44.9bn. Chen built his fortune in chemicals for the apparel industry, then in 2022 bought a bankrupt Dalian shipyard for just US$300mn. Four years on, Hengli Heavy Industry holds the world's largest single-yard order book: the world's fleet is old, green-fuel rules are forcing a replacement wave and, with Korean yards sold out, orders flooded to China — Hengli signed over 200 ships in the first half of this year alone and is booked out past 500 vessels to 2030. His story is part of a bigger one: some 100 Hurun rich listers made their money in high-end equipment — the machines that make the machines — and they are replacing the old heavyweights. Liang Wen’gen & Liang Zaizhong's Sany sells excavators in 150 countries against Caterpillar and Komatsu; Wang Liping's Hengli Hydraulic (no relation) broke the German and Japanese monopoly on high-pressure hydraulic cylinders; and Wu Bo's Estun is taking robot market share from ABB and Kuka. Germany, Switzerland, Japan and Korea defined this industry for a century; the names on this list are redefining it.”

“Around 100 Hurun rich listers made their money from renewable energy and storage this year, and their stories tell of consolidation: scale and storage won, overcapacity lost. The sector's biggest riser was Zhang Hejun of Deye, nearly doubling to US$9.4bn, as blackout-prone emerging markets from South Africa to the Middle East snapped up its storage inverters. Robin Zeng Yuqun of CATL added US$11bn as energy storage became the fastest-growing business inside CATL's US$250bn market cap. Cao Renxian & Su Lei of Sungrow, the world's largest inverter maker at US$45bn, held nearly steady. Solar manufacturing told the harder story — Liu Hanyuan of Tongwei fell 24% on polysilicon overcapacity. Among new faces, Xu Yingtong debuted with US$3.7bn after listing storage maker Sigenergy, which he founded only four years ago after leaving Huawei. China dominates every link of the energy-transition supply chain, and it shows on this list.”

“The next rich list is already visible in this one. SpaceTech put three rocket founders on the list for the first time: Zhang Changwu, 43, of Landspace — whose Zhuque-3 reusable rocket made global headlines this summer, praised by Elon Musk as a potential Falcon 9-beater — Kang Yonglai of Space Pioneer and Yang Yiqiang of CAS Space. Expect these names to be much bigger over the next few years. Quantum computing, brain-computer interfaces and quantum computing do not have a rich lister yet, but it probably won’t be long.”

“Lei Jun of Xiaomi was the year's biggest faller, his wealth halving to US$25.1bn — and his story is China's consumer story: he built one of the country's best-loved brands on affordable premium, then bet the company on cars, straight into the fiercest price war on earth, where this year even the winners got marked down. Consumer fortunes fell across the board: Pop Mart's Grant Wang Ninghalved from the Labubu peak and Nongfu Spring's Zhong Shanshan gave back US$13bn — though he is still up 20% on two years ago after his record 2025. This is what deflation looks like on a rich list: prices have been falling for ten straight quarters, the consumer won't spend, and the bottlers and brand owners feel it first. Yet even here, the last two years minted new billionaires in small luxuries and services — Chagee's Zhang Junjie, Heytea's Nie Yunchen, Manner's Lu Jianxia and China's homegrown 'Luxury King' Laopu Gold's Xu Gaoming.”

“Turnover at the top of the list tells a story. A decade ago, China's urbanisation drive made property developers the biggest fortunes in the land: Wang Jianlin of Wanda and then Xu Jiayin of Evergrande topped the list, and one in three of the Top 100 were in real estate. Today, for the first time ever, not a single mainland property developer remains in the Top 100 — the only property names left at the top are the Hong Kong landlord families. Three former Number Ones no longer even make the list: Huang Guangyu of Gome, China's richest man three times in the 2000s, Li Hejun of Hanergy, the 2015 Number One, and Xu Jiayin himself. Other former Top 10 mainstays now off the list include Zhang Jindong of Suning, a Top 10 member seven times, Lu Zhiqiang of Oceanwide, Yao Zhenhua of Baoneng, Wang Wenyin of Amer and Liu Zhongtian of Zhongwang — and, from the first solar boom just over twenty years ago, Shi Zhenrong of Suntech and Peng Xiaofeng of LDK. Their fortunes were built on property, retail and leverage; the fortunes replacing them are being built on AI and hardtech. The era when property was China's wealth-creation engine is definitively over.”

“Going global was this year's defining business story — and the list is split between those who went global and those who were born global. Zhang Yiming's ByteDance kept a 19.9% stake in TikTok's US business after this year's landmark restructuring, which valued the US operation at US$14bn; Wang Chuanfu's BYD shipped 70% more cars overseas in the first half — overseas is now more than half of revenue for the first time — with factories rising from Hungary to Brazil. Then there are the born globals, designed for the world from day one: Frank Wang Tao's DJI has led the world drone market since its first products; JK Liu Jingkang's Insta360 sells the world's best-selling 360-degree cameras mostly outside China; Chris Xu Yangtian's Shein does not sell a single item in its home market; and Zhu Zhaojiang's Transsion is Africa's biggest phone maker without selling one phone in China. One-third of this year's list is in export business — and they are the reason China now accounts for close to 30% of global manufacturing value-add. Going global is no longer a strategy on this list; it is the dividing line between the risers and the fallers.”

“Shenzhen is the No. 1 city on the Hurun China Rich List for the first time ever, with close to 180 residents, up 30 — and hardtech put it there. This is the city of Tencent's Pony Ma, BYD's Wang Chuanfu and DJI's Frank Wang; of Grace Wang, who started on a Foxconn assembly line and then founded Luxshare, Apple's biggest assembly challenger; and of this year's new fortunes in the AI supply chain — Wang Zhiyong of display-maker HKC and Cai Huabo of memory-maker Longsys, whose fortune more than tripled this year.”

“Hardtech is having its moment across the Taiwan Strait as well, and the stories of the island's list members are the story of the AI supply chain. Morris Chang founded TSMC at the age of 56 and invented the foundry model; at 95, he watched his wealth grow 64% to US$11bn as TSMC grew to a US$1.9tn market cap. Jason Chang & family of ASE, the world's largest chip packager, now worth US$90bn, trebled their wealth as advanced packaging became AI's bottleneck. Tsai Ming-Kai of MediaTek was up 151% as MediaTek’s valuation rose to US$100bn; Bruce Cheng Chung-Hua of Delta Electronics — which supplies 60% of the power systems in AI servers and is now worth US$150bn — was up 126%; and Lin Tsung-Chi of King Slide, whose precision rails slide servers into AI racks, was up 335%. Taiwan's economy grew almost 14% in the first quarter on this boom.”

“Hong Kong's stock market is having a resurgence, and this list rode it. IPO proceeds more than tripled to over US$35bn last year, making Hong Kong the world's top fundraising venue for the first time since 2019, and a near-record 19 A-share companies completed 'A+H' listings. Robin Zeng Yuqun led the way: CATL's US$5.3bn Hong Kong offering in May 2025 was the biggest HK IPO since 2023, priced at a rare premium to its A-shares, with proceeds funding its new plant in Hungary. Sun Piaoyang's Hengrui, Zhang Xinghai's Seres, Liang Wengen's Sany and Pang Kang's Haitian followed the path blazed by He Xiangjian's Midea and Wang Wei's SF Express in 2024. For a generation of Chinese entrepreneurs with global ambitions, Hong Kong is once again where East meets West — and the queue of A-share companies behind this year's class is still growing.”

“Many looking at this year's list — the 36-year-old robotics billionaire, the two 41-year-olds in the Top 10 — will call it the rise of the young. The numbers say otherwise: China's rich listers are getting older, with an average age of 61, up from 48 twenty years ago. In truth, both are happening at once: headline wealth is ageing with the first generation of reform-era founders, whilst the fastest-growing fortunes belong to a new generation barely half their age. But the pipeline thins at the very bottom: there is no self-made Under-30 on the list this year, the 10 Under-30s listed are all inheritors, and the youngest self-made entrepreneur is Zhang Junjie, 31, of bubble tea brand Chagee. Of the 59 Under-35s, just six are self-made, led by Yang Zhilin, 33, of Kimi-maker Moonshot AI. The new generation is being minted in AI and robotics.”

“The children of the rich listers are now in their early 30s and the number of NextGen successors on this year's list remains at a record high — Chinese family wealth has officially entered a phase of large-scale inheritance. 98 of the Under-40s on the list are second-generation inheritors. The most prominent is Kelly Zong Fuli, 44, who consolidated control of Wahaha after a hard-fought succession battle and ranks 59th with US$12.4bn.”

“Wealth is concentrating. The 'K-shape' is as visible on this list as in any Western economy. The number of individuals worth CNY 100bn or more has grown from zero a decade ago to 43 today, and is likely to double over the next five years, while those worth CNY 10bn or more have climbed from almost zero 20 years ago to over 800. It mirrors a global story: Elon Musk has again become a dollar trillionaire, and AI lab Anthropic is reportedly targeting a valuation of US$1.5tn in its planned IPO. China's first renminbi trillionaires are a matter of when, not if: Zhang Yiming is already two-thirds of the way there, and I expect China to have three trillionaires, in yuan terms, within five years and ten within a decade. The most likely challengers for future Number Ones are Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek, who went straight to US$41.7bn in his first year on the list before DeepSeek has even properly commercialized; CZ Zhao Changpeng of Binance, on US$27.7bn as crypto moves into the mainstream; and Chen Tianshi of Cambricon, already on US$30.5bn at just 41, as China races to build its own AI chips. Behind them comes the future-tech generation in humanoid robots. Watch also life sciences fused with AI, and commercial rockets — this year put three rocket founders on the list for the first time. And then there is the ultimate wildcard: the 'one-person unicorn', or OPC — a billion-dollar company built by a single founder directing an army of AI agents. Given China's unmatched combination of engineers, AI adoption and entrepreneurial hunger, I would not be surprised to find someone with an OPC on this list within one or two years.”

“Philanthropy is not keeping pace with wealth creation — a global phenomenon, and stark in China, where this list's total wealth has more than doubled in ten years whilst giving at the very top has barely moved. Even Elon Musk has given away only a small fraction of his fortune. 13 Hurun list entrepreneurs have now donated more than CNY 10bn over the years; the shares once donated by Colin Huang of Pinduoduo and Pony Ma of Tencent are now each worth over US$7bn, and the Xiaomi shares that Lei Jundonated to his foundation are worth more than US$4bn. This year's biggest single donation came from Yu Renrong, founder of OmniVision (Will Semiconductor) — China's leading designer of the image-sensor chips found in smartphone cameras worldwide — who in December 2025 gave 30 million shares, worth about US$540mn, to the education foundation of Ningbo Eastern Institute of Technology. Robin Zeng of CATL donated shares worth over US$300mn to Shanghai Jiao Tong University in March, and Zhong Shanshan donated shares worth US$140mn in August.”

“By social media following, Lei Jun of Xiaomi is undoubtedly China's 'top influencer' entrepreneur, with some 45 million followers on Douyin alone and an estimated 70 million across platforms — more than any other Chinese business leader, though still less than a third of Elon Musk's 230 million followers on X. Others include Michael Yu Minhong of New Oriental, Zhou Hongyi of 360, Liu Qiangdong of JD.com, Eric Li Shufu of Geely and Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motors. We have noticed quite a few entrepreneurs now run their own social media, saving their companies significant advertising costs.”

“Despite 65% of this year's list not having been on the list ten years ago, those born in the Year of the Rabbit continue to top the Hurun list — for an unprecedented 15th consecutive year — including Eric Li Shufu, 63, of Geely, Grant Wang Ning, 39, of Pop Mart and Cai Haoyu, 39, of miHoYo. This may be because Rabbit-age entrepreneurs were the right age for three key waves of wealth creation: the early reform-era market openings, the 1993 'going into business' wave after Deng Xiaoping's Southern tour, and the 2015 'internet plus' boom.”

“Hurun Report has been promoting entrepreneurship through its lists and research since 1999. You can think of the rich list as an annual snapshot of China's private sector, with the stories of these entrepreneurs telling the story of China's economy.”

Top 10

Three new faces in the Top 10: Chen Jianhua & Fan Hongwei of Hengli, Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek and Chen Tianshi of Cambricon. Lei Jun of Xiaomi, Huang Zheng of Pinduoduo and Eric Li Shufu & family of Geely dropped out.

The cutoff to the Top 10 was US$30.5bn, down US$1.1bn from last year. The average age of the Top 10 was 60. Zhang Yiming took top spot and Zhong Shanshan slipped to second.

Between them, the Top 10 are worth US$511bn — more than one dollar in ten of the entire list. Their stories — from Zhang Yiming's AI to Chen Jianhua's shipyard gamble and Liang Wenfeng's open-source assault on the AI establishment — are told in Appendix A.

↑ Rank increase yoy  ↓ Rank decrease yoy  - No Rank change yoy *New to the Top 10

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

Biggest risers

785 saw their wealth increase, of which 263 were new faces.

“Wealth creation this year was remarkably concentrated: the ten biggest risers added US$151bn between them, and the ten biggest new faces arrived with US$103bn — together, more than half of all the net new wealth generated on this year's list. The very top did the lifting,” said Rupert Hoogewerf.

Behind the headline names: Zhu Yiming of GigaDevice added US$14.5bn on the blockbuster listing of ChangXin Memory, now China's most valuable company. Jason Chang & family of ASE in Taiwan trebled their wealth to US$20.1bn on the AI chip-packaging boom. Lin Tsung-Chi of King Slide — whose precision rails slide servers into AI racks — was up 335% to US$20.1bn. Wang Weixiu & Wang Xiaodong of Zhongji Innolight, which supplies the lion's share of Nvidia's 1.6T optical modules, added US$12.8bn. Yuan Fugen & family of Dongshan Precision added US$11.2bn on AI circuit boards and optical chips. And Winston Wong & Grace Wong of Grace THW, the copper-clad laminates maker Winston Wong founded after stepping back from the Formosa group, added US$8.6bn.

Top 10 Biggest Risers

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

Top 10 New Faces

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

This year's 263 new faces tell the story of where China's economy is heading. Beyond Liang Wenfeng, the class of 2026 includes Wang Xingxing of Unitree; Wang Zhiyong of HKC, the display-panel maker taking on Korea's giants; Ye Senran of Redboard, riding the AI circuit-board boom; Chen Weiliang of GPU designer MetaX, which listed this year to a market cap of US$35bn; and Yan Junjie, 37, of MiniMax, whose Hong Kong-listed shares peaked at nearly US$40bn in May before settling around US$13bn. Zhipu's listing captured the year's AI fever in miniature: Liu Debing and Tang Jie's large-model company listed in Hong Kong in January at a valuation of around US$7bn, briefly traded above US$100bn in June, and had settled back near US$70bn by the cut-off — still making both founders billionaires several times over. Semiconductors, AI and industrial products produced the majority of the new fortunes.

Wealth decrease

911 saw their wealth decrease or remain unchanged, of which 167 dropped off the list.

Context matters for several of this year's fallers. Lei Jun's US$20.6bn fall was the year's biggest in absolute terms, but Zhong Shanshan is down 23% yet still worth 20% more than two years ago after his record 2025. In pharma, last year's surge has paused rather than reversed: Zhong Huijuan of Hansoh gave back 12% but is still up around 70% on two years ago, and Sun Piaoyang of Hengrui is down 31% yet remains ahead of his 2024 wealth. Baidu founder Robin Li & family slipped to 114th with US$8.2bn — out of the Top 100 for the first time since Li first made the Hurun list in 2004.

167 dropped off the list, 129 more than last year. 117 of them — seven in ten — fell below the CNY 5 billion (US$740 million) cut-off on share-price or market-cap declines. Pharmaceuticals produced the most drop-offs with 16, followed by auto parts; Beijing lost 26 and Shanghai 19. A defining theme was the bursting of the recent Hong Kong tech IPO bubble: AI and tech companies that listed hot and then crashed, including Yunzhisheng's Huang Wei, 4Paradigm's Dai Wenyuan & Wu Ming and Q Technology's He Ningning. Chery's Yin Tongyue dropped off after IPO filings revealed a stake below 5%; and San'an's Lin Xiucheng & Lin Zhiqiang fell on company troubles.

Where they live

Shenzhen took top spot for the first time. Beijing led for many years, Shanghai last year. Shanghai this year was second with 161 and Beijing third with 140. The Top 10 cities together account for 60% of the list. By region, the Yangtze River Delta is home to 480 or 31% of the list, followed by the Greater Bay Area with 382 or 25%. 247 live in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan or overseas, including Zhang Yiming of ByteDance and Li Xiting of Mindray in Singapore, and Chen Tianqiao & Luo Qianqian of Shanda and David Sun & John Tu of Kingston in the US.

↑ Rank increase yoy  ↓ Rank decrease yoy  - No Rank change yoy

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

The Top 6 cities each have a distinct economic signature. Shenzhen (177) is hardtech — semiconductors, electronics and drones — led by Tencent's Ma Huateng, BYD's Wang Chuanfu and DJI's Frank Wang Tao. Shanghai (161) is capital and content: investors and games studios such as miHoYo's Cai Haoyu, topped by Pinduoduo's Colin Huang Zheng. Beijing (140, down 6) is AI and chips: Cambricon's Chen Tianshi, Xiaomi's Lei Jun and ChangXin Memory founder Zhu Yiming.

Hong Kong (102) remains old money — real estate, finance and trade — led by Li Ka-shing & Victor Li Tzar Kuoi. Hangzhou (88) blends consumer and AI: Zhong Shanshan, DeepSeek's Liang Wenfeng, Ding Lei and Jack Ma & family. And Suzhou (61, up 13, a fast riser) is advanced manufacturing, led by Hengli's Chen Jianhua & Fan Hongwei and Dongshan Precision's Yuan Fugen. Guangzhou (61, up 1), just outside the Top 6, remains the old trading capital — consumer and autos: home to Lyu Xiangyang & Zhang Changhong of Youngy, No. 16 with US$25.3bn, whose early backing of cousin Wang Chuanfu's BYD is one of the great investments of the era, Shein's Chris Xu Yangtian and Xpeng's He Xiaopeng. The trend is clear: wealth is migrating from the financial and internet capitals towards the hardtech and manufacturing belt.

What Industries are on the up?

Industrial Products stayed top with 18.5% of the list, driven by consumer electronics components, auto parts and robotics. Consumer Products was second with 9.7% and Healthcare third with 8.3%. Semiconductors rose sharply to 6.9%, one of the fastest-growing industries. By share of wealth, Industrial Products also led with 13.8% — the fastest-growing by wealth — followed by Consumer Products with 9.7% and Media & Entertainment with 7.6%, boosted by ByteDance.

↑ Rank increase yoy  ↓ Rank decrease yoy  - No Rank change yoy

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

Other ways of looking at Industries

10.4% of Hurun rich listers are now active in AI, up from 9% last year. 6.5% in New Energy, 6.4% in High-end Equipment, 5.0% in AR/VR/MR, 4.9% in Robotics, 1.8% in Web3, 1.5% in New Materials, 1.2% in Social Media and 0.8% in the Low-altitude Economy (drones and flying taxis).

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

Chinese Star Signs

Those born in the Year of the Rabbit continued their strong run, topping the Hurun list for an unprecedented 15th consecutive year — even though 65% of this year's list were not on the list ten years ago, including Eric Li Shufu, 63, of Geely, Grant Wang Ning, 39, of Pop Mart and Cai Haoyu, 39, of miHoYo. Dragons stayed second, represented by Li Ka-shing, Joseph Tsai and Jack Ma Yun & family. Roosters took third, led by Xiaomi's Lei Jun, Xinfa's Zhang Gang and Moonshot AI's Yang Zhilin. Propping up the table this year are the Rat and the Pig. And a footnote for the superstitious: three of this year's Top 10 were born in the Year of the Pig — Zhang Yiming, Pony Ma Huateng and William Ding Lei; four if you count Hengli's Chen Jianhua. Not bad for a sign reputedly better at enjoying wealth than making it.

↑ Rank increase yoy  ↓ Rank decrease yoy  - No Rank change yoy

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

Non-mainlanders

9 individuals on the Hurun China Rich List were born outside of Greater China and built their businesses in China. The richest is Horst Julius Pudwill, 81, a German whose power-tools and vacuum-cleaner group TTI has made him US$8.0bn; he lives in Hong Kong. In terms of enterprise value created, John Oyler, 57, an American, stands out: his anti-cancer drug company BeiGene is worth close to US$45bn and sits in the Hurun Global 1000.

Source: Hurun China Rich List 2026

Passed away

5 from last year's list passed away: Helmut Sohmen, chairman of BW Group, on 26 October 2025 at the age of 85, succeeded by his son Andreas Sohmen-Pao; Tang Aoqi of Xinquan Shares on 26 October 2025 at 80, succeeded by his son Tang Zhihua; Chen Lihua of Fuwah Group on 5 April 2026 at 85 — the group has not published a detailed inheritance plan, so the split of her wealth among her children cannot yet be confirmed; Samuel Yin Yen-liang, founder of Ruentex, on 26 May 2026 at 76, succeeded by his son Yin Chongyao; and Sze Man Bok of HengAn on 29 September 2026 at 78, succeeded by his son Sze Wang Kim.

The list in 1999

“It's been a massive changing of the guard. Two in three of today's rich listers were not on the list as little as ten years ago, and just six individuals survive from our very first list of 50 names in 1999: Midea's He Xiangjian, Liu Yonghao of New Hope and his brother Liu Yongxing of East Hope, Skyworth's Huang Hongsheng, Neptunus’ Zhang Simin, and Orient Group's Zhang Hongwei.”

Divorces

Maxscend announced in February 2026 that co-founder Xu Zhihan divorced Zhang Yu, transferring half of his directly-held shares to his former wife; Xu remains on the list with US$0.8bn, whilst Zhang fell below the cut-off. Shen Dongri of womenswear group Lancy divorced on 23 July 2026 and dropped off the list — he was worth US$1bn last year. Qiangyi announced in September 2026 that controller Zhou Ming and Jiang Chunlan had divorced; after an even split of assets, both stayed on the list with US$0.9bn each. Wolwo Bio's Hu Gengxi and Chen Yanni both dropped off after their divorce settlement in September 2026 — they were worth US$1.05bn together last year. Shennong Group announced in October 2026 that controller He Zuxun hdivorced Luo Wanyu, transferring 30% of his directly-held shares to his former wife; He remains on the list with US$1.2bn.

Stats throughout the years

Total wealth on the list has more than doubled over the past ten years, from US$2.2tn in 2016 to US$4.8tn this year.

New faces, drop-offs and total wealth by year

Source: Hurun Research Institute. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan included since 2021

Cut-offs changes

Source: Hurun Research Institute. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan included since 2021

No. of Billionaires and Number Ones

Over the 28 years of the list, there have been 18 different Number Ones.

Source: Hurun Research Institute. Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan included since 2021

Methodology

The List is a snapshot of wealth as of 1 September 2026 with material changes up to publication. The exchange rate used for the US dollar was CNY 6.72, for the Hong Kong dollar was CNY 0.86, for the New Taiwan Dollar was CNY 0.21. Percentage wealth changes versus last year are calculated in renminbi.

Valuing the wealth of China's richest is as much an art as it is a science. We have missed some people, many of whom go to extraordinary lengths to hide their wealth, but we believe the Hurun Rich List to be the most serious attempt to identify China's top wealth creators and to measure their holdings. There are shareholders missing from the likes of ByteDance, Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei, and other big companies, where as little as 0.1% ownership of the company might be enough to make our cut. Our team of researchers has - for the 28th year running - traveled the length and breadth of the country cross-checking information with entrepreneurs, local government, industry experts, journalists, bankers and regulators, as well as previous years' databases. For non-listed companies our valuation was based on a comparison with their listed equivalents using prevailing industry Price/Earnings ratios.

People that ought perhaps to be on the list, but where we cannot find reliable data include the likes of Haier's Zhang Ruimin, PingAn's Peter Ma Mingzhe, and Huawei's Sun Yafang, because they are hidden behind employee stock holdings. Others that made the list that may well be undervalued are the likes of Duan Yongping of BBK, whose shareholdings in Vivo, Oppo and Pinduoduo, are not publicly available.

Hurun China Rich List 2026 Top 100

For the full list, please see www.hurun.net

Source: Hurun Research Institute

Appendix A: The Top 100 — Who's Who

Brief profiles of each member of the Top 100.

1. Zhang Yiming of ByteDance — US$99.7bn, up 43%. ByteDance's profits surged on advertising and AI revenue from Douyin, TikTok and its AI assistant Doubao.

Zhang founded ByteDance in a Beijing apartment in 2012, betting on algorithmic recommendation over editorial curation, with college friend Liang Rubo — now CEO — among the early team. He tops the list for the second time, having first taken the title in 2024. He is the first Chinese founder to build a consumer internet platform that truly won globally: TikTok has over 1.6bn users, and ByteDance remains China's most valuable unicorn.

2. Zhong Shanshan of Nongfu Spring — US$61.0bn, down 23%. Nongfu's shares fell 17% from last year's peak — despite record 2025 profits — and his vaccine maker Wantai Bio halved as its HPV-vaccine pop faded; about 80% of his wealth comes from Nongfu.

A former Zhejiang Daily reporter, Zhong made his first fortune in turtle-pill supplements in 1993 and founded Nongfu in 1996 with the famous line 'we don't make water; we are porters of nature'. China's richest person in four of the past five years, he is still worth 20% more than two years ago — the quintessential play on China's 1.4bn consumers.

3. Zeng Yuqun of CATL — US$57.3bn, up 17%. CATL's market cap reached US$250bn on record profits, with energy storage now its fastest-growing business.

Zeng co-founded battery maker ATL in 1999 and in 2011 spun out CATL in his home town of Ningde, taking early partners Huang Shilin and Li Ping with him — both also in the Top 100. CATL makes roughly 40% of the world's EV batteries and its May 2025 Hong Kong listing was the largest IPO of the year.

4. Ma Huateng of Tencent — US$51.5bn, down 26%. Tencent's shares pulled back after last year's AI-driven rally, though gaming, advertising and fintech all remain solid.

Ma founded Tencent in 1998 in Shenzhen with four classmates and friends, including Zhang Zhidong — also in the Top 100 — building it from the QQ messenger into the WeChat super-app used by 1.4bn people. This is his first year out of the Top 3 since 2022; he has now made the Top 10 fifteen times, the great evergreen of the list.

5. He Xiangjian & family of Midea — US$46.1bn, up 12%. Midea delivered steady profits and continued global expansion after its 2024 Hong Kong listing, its robotics and industrial businesses re-rating.

He founded the business in 1968 as a bottle-lid workshop in Beijiao, Guangdong, with 23 fellow villagers, and grew it into the world's largest home-appliance maker, later buying Germany's Kuka robots. He stands out for governance: he handed Midea to professional manager Fang Hongbo rather than his children, still the model succession among Chinese founders. He collected over US$1.3bn in dividends in the past year.

6. Chen Jianhua & Fan Hongwei of Hengli — US$44.9bn, up 59%. The market re-rated Hengli as its shipbuilding arm grabbed the world's largest single-yard order book, on top of a recovering petrochemical cycle.

Chen, a former construction worker, bought a bankrupt silk-weaving mill in Suzhou in 1994 with wife Fan Hongwei and built it into one of the world's largest polyester and refining groups; in 2022 he bought the bankrupt STX Dalian shipyard for just US$300mn. Four years on, that yard's listed vehicle is worth over US$15bn — defying gravity through a petrochemical downcycle and US sanctions. The surprise of the year.

7. Liang Wenfeng of DeepSeek — US$41.7bn, a new face. DeepSeek's low-cost, open models shocked Silicon Valley this year and made it the world's most valuable AI pure-play.

Liang founded quant hedge fund High-Flyer in 2015 with classmates Xu Jin and Zheng Dawei, amassing the GPU stockpile with which he self-funded DeepSeek in 2023 — no outside VC. He has become the figurehead of Chinese AI, and the lowest-profile member of the Top 10; DeepSeek teammates Zheng Dawei, Li Huan and Chen Zhe all joined the list this year.

8. Ding Lei of NetEase — US$40.9bn, down 14%. NetEase's games held steady but the stock gave back part of last year's gains.

Ding founded NetEase in 1997 in Guangzhou with savings from his telecom job, riding the portal, then gaming, waves — Fantasy Westward Journey remains a cash cow two decades on. He was briefly China's richest man back in 2003 and is, with Pony Ma Huateng, one of the list's two great evergreens: twelve Top 10 appearances. He collected around US$900mn in dividends over the past year.

9. Li Ka-shing & Victor Li Tzar Kuoi of CK Hutchison / CK Asset — US$37.6bn, up 8%. CK Hutchison re-rated after agreeing to sell its global ports business to a BlackRock-led consortium for US$22.8bn — a deal that drew Beijing's scrutiny and showed how geopolitics now prices assets.

Li, forced to leave school at 12 when his father died, founded Cheung Kong as a plastic-flower factory in 1950 and built it into a property, ports, retail, telecoms and energy empire. Now 98 and retired since 2018, his wealth is run by eldest son Victor; second son Richard Li ranks 51st.

10. Chen Tianshi of Cambricon — US$30.5bn, up 14%. Explosive demand for AI chips sent Cambricon's market cap to just under US$100bn and to its first profits, earning it the tag 'China's Nvidia'.

Chen, a graduate of USTC's gifted-youth class, founded Cambricon in 2016 with his brother Chen Yunji out of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, where both designed AI processors. At 41 he is — with Liang Wenfeng — the youngest self-made member of the Top 10, and a first-timer there.

11. Huang Zheng of PDD — US$30.1bn, down 36%. PDD's shares fell as US tariffs and the end of the de-minimis exemption hit Temu's cross-border model.

Huang, a former Google engineer, founded Pinduoduo in 2015 in Shanghai, out-executing Alibaba in lower-tier cities with social group-buying, then taking the playbook global with Temu in 2022. He stepped back in 2021 and has given away a tenth of the company to employees and charity.

12. Zhao Changpeng of Binance — US$27.7bn, down 2%. A crypto bull market drove BNB to record highs and Binance's volumes with them.

CZ founded Binance in 2017 after stints at Blockchain.info and OKCoin, building the world's largest crypto exchange in under a year. Pardoned by President Trump in late 2025 after a 2023 guilty plea and four months in a US prison, he remains the richest person in crypto.

13. Ma Yun & family of Alibaba — US$27.5bn, down 12%. Alibaba's shares recovered strongly on its cloud and AI pivot, though Ant Group remains a fraction of its 2020 valuation.

Jack Ma founded Alibaba in 1999 in his Hangzhou apartment with 17 co-founders, including Joseph Tsai — also in the Top 100 — after two failed ventures and a spell as an English teacher. Back in the public eye since 2023, he has staked Alibaba's future on AI.

14. Li Shufu & family of Geely — US$26.8bn, down 20%. An industry price war squeezed margins at Geely Auto even as volumes grew.

Li started in 1986 making refrigerator parts, moved into motorcycles and then cars in 1997 — famously calling a car 'four wheels and two sofas' — and bought Volvo from Ford in 2010, still the benchmark Chinese global acquisition. His empire spans Volvo, Polestar, Lotus, Zeekr and a stake in Mercedes-Benz.

15. Huang Shilin of CATL — US$26.0bn, up 17%. CATL's run to a US$250bn market cap lifted all its founding shareholders.

Huang co-founded ATL with Zeng Yuqun in 1999 and followed him to found CATL in 2011, serving as vice-chairman until 2022. He holds his fortune almost entirely in CATL stock — a pure play on the energy transition.

16. Lyu Xiangyang & Zhang Changhong of Rongjie — US$25.3bn, down 11%. His fortune tracks BYD's share price, which cooled in the price war, plus lithium assets in Rongjie.

Lyu is Wang Chuanfu's cousin: in 1995 he put up the seed money — 2.5 million yuan — for Wang to found BYD, a stake that became one of the great venture investments of all time. His Rongjie group has since built a lithium business in Sichuan.

17. Lei Jun of Xiaomi — US$25.1bn, down 48%. Heavy upfront investment in Xiaomi's car business and a pullback in the share price halved his wealth — the year's biggest fall in absolute terms.

Lei made his name turning around Kingsoft, sold Joyo to Amazon, then founded Xiaomi in 2010 with six co-founders including Lin Bin, also in the Top 100. The SU7 made Xiaomi a serious EV player, and Lei remains China's 'top influencer' entrepreneur with some 70 million followers across platforms — still less than a third of Elon Musk's on X.

18. Henry Cheng Kar-shun & family of Chow Tai Fook / New World — US$24.6bn, down 6%. Record gold prices buoyed Chow Tai Fook even as the family worked through New World Development's debt crunch.

Henry Cheng is the son of the late Cheng Yu-tung, who built the jewellery and property empire from a Macau gold shop; the third generation now plays a growing role. The family has kept its Top 20 position through Hong Kong's property downturn.

19. Qin Yinglin & Qian Ying of Muyuan — US$23.1bn, down 17%. Pig prices fell to multi-year lows — industry prices hit a seven-year low in 2025 and kept falling to near-record lows in 2026 — and the deepening downcycle dragged the stock despite Muyuan's industry-leading costs, down to about 11.6 yuan a kilo, which kept it profitable longer than any peer.

Qin quit a state job in 1992 to start farming with 22 pigs alongside wife Qian Ying, a trained vet, and scaled Muyuan into a fully integrated producer raising over 70 million pigs a year. He has ridden the hog cycle to the Top 20 and back more than once.

19. Zhang Gang & family of Xinfa — US$23.1bn, down 3%. Alumina and aluminium prices firmed on supply discipline, lifting Xinfa's integrated coal-power-aluminium model.

Zhang took over his father's collective enterprise in Shandong in the 1990s and built Xinfa into one of China's largest private aluminium producers. Notoriously low-profile, he is one of the youngest members of the Top 20 at 45.

21. Wang Chuanfu of BYD — US$22.3bn, down 17%. A brutal domestic price war squeezed profits even as BYD's exports surged 70% and it raised its overseas target to two million vehicles.

Wang, a battery researcher, founded BYD in 1995 in Shenzhen with seed money from his cousin Lyu Xiangyang — also in the Top 20 — and early backing from Warren Buffett in 2008. BYD is now the world's largest EV maker, with factories rising from Hungary to Brazil.

21. Dang Yanbao of Baofeng Energy — US$22.3bn, up 43%. Baofeng's giant Inner Mongolia coal-to-olefins complex came fully onstream, and its green-hydrogen projects re-rated the stock.

Dang started with a small trading business in Ningxia and founded Baofeng in 2005, building it into the world's largest coal-to-olefins producer. He pairs coal chemistry with solar-made hydrogen — an unlikely green champion from coal country.

21. Wang Weixiu & Wang Xiaodong of Zhongji Innolight — US$22.3bn, up 121%. Orders for 800G and 1.6T optical modules from AI datacentres sent Zhongji Innolight's market cap to around US$150bn — it supplies the lion's share of Nvidia's modules.

The father-and-son pair transformed a Shandong motor-equipment maker by acquiring Suzhou's Innolight in 2017. It is now the world's largest optical-module maker and one of the purest AI-infrastructure plays on the list.

24. Lee Choi Mei Ling & family of Lee Kum Kee — US$22.0bn, up 2%. The family's global sauce business kept compounding quietly.

Lee Kum Kee was founded in 1888 by Lee Kum Sheung, inventor of oyster sauce; Lee Choi Mei Ling, 96, is the widow of third-generation leader Lee Man Tat, and fourth- and fifth-generation family members now run the group. At 138 years old, it is the oldest business in the Top 100.

25. Yan Hao of Pacific Construction — US$21.6bn, down 6%. Infrastructure spending stabilised the family construction empire.

Yan took over Pacific Construction from his father Yan Jiehe — the outspoken 'first madman of Chinese construction' — in 2011, aged just 25, one of the earliest big second-generation handovers on the list. The group remains one of China's largest private builders of public infrastructure.

26. Zhang Zhidong of Tencent — US$20.8bn, down 27%. His wealth moves with Tencent's share price.

Zhang co-founded Tencent in 1998 with university classmate Ma Huateng and wrote much of QQ's original code as chief technology officer, retiring from the company in 2014. He has since devoted himself to education philanthropy, including a founding gift to Wuhan College.

27. Liu Yongxing & Liu Xiangyu of East Hope — US$20.4bn, up 7%. Alumina and aluminium prices rose and polysilicon finally bottomed, lifting East Hope's heavy-industry portfolio.

Liu Yongxing is the second of the four Liu brothers, who quit state jobs in 1982 to raise quails and built the Hope Group — China's pioneering private agribusiness — before dividing it in 1995; brother Liu Yonghao of New Hope is also in the Top 100. Father and son now run East Hope together.

28. Yu Yong of Cathay Fortune / CMOC — US$20.2bn, up 43%. Record copper and cobalt output in Congo made CMOC one of the year's most profitable miners.

Yu's Cathay Fortune is CMOC's largest shareholder and the vehicle through which he controls the group, having taken over a struggling state molybdenum mine in 2003. He remains one of China's most discreet billionaires, rarely photographed or quoted.

29. Jason Chang & family of ASE — US$20.1bn, up 200%. AI made advanced packaging the bottleneck of the chip industry, and ASE — the world's largest chip packager — trebled in value to around US$90bn.

Jason Chang founded ASE in Kaohsiung in 1984 with his brother Richard, later merging it with Siliconware to cement its lead. At 82 he is one of the big winners of the AI capex supercycle.

29. David Sun of Kingston Technology — US$20.1bn, up 35%. The DRAM supercycle sent memory prices — and Kingston's revenues — sharply higher.

Sun co-founded Kingston in California in 1987 with John Tu, both Taiwanese immigrants who had lost their savings in that year's stock-market crash; they bootstrapped it into the world's largest independent memory-module maker, famous for sharing profits with staff. The pair, both in the Top 100, have never taken outside money.

29. Lin Tsung-Chi & family of King Slide — US$20.1bn, up 335%. Every AI server rack needs precision rails, and King Slide dominates that niche — its shares more than quadrupled.

Lin founded the company in Kaohsiung in 1986 making furniture hinges and slides, then pivoted into server rails just as cloud computing took off. At 85, he was one of the year's biggest percentage risers in the Top 100.

29. John Tu of Kingston Technology — US$20.1bn, up 35%. The memory upcycle lifted Kingston, which he co-founded in 1987 with David Sun after the two lost their savings in the 1987 crash.

Born in Chongqing and raised in Taiwan before emigrating to the US, Tu runs Kingston's culture of profit-sharing — the pair once famously shared US$100mn with staff on the sale of a stake to SoftBank. He plays drums in his own band.

33. Cai Haoyu of miHoYo — US$19.0bn, up 58%. Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero kept miHoYo's global revenues growing.

Cai founded miHoYo in 2011 in a Shanghai Jiao Tong University dormitory with classmates Liu Wei and Luo Yuhao — all three in the Top 100 — under the motto 'tech otakus save the world'. At 39 he is among the youngest in the Top 100, and miHoYo remains unlisted and hugely profitable.

33. Zhou Qunfei & Zheng Junlong of Lens Technology — US$19.0bn, up 15%. The AI device cycle and new foldable phones lifted demand for Lens's precision glass.

Zhou went from migrant factory worker in Shenzhen to founding Lens in 1993 with HK$20,000, making watch glass before winning Apple's cover-glass business; husband Zheng Junlong joined the business early and runs operations. She has been ranked the world's richest self-made woman.

35. Zhong Huijuan of Hansoh Pharma — US$18.5bn, down 12%. Pharma valuations cooled after last year's surge, though Hansoh remains well up over two years on a string of out-licensing deals with global majors.

Zhong, a chemistry teacher, founded Hansoh in 1995; her husband Sun Piaoyang runs Hengrui — also in the Top 100. They are China's first pharma family.

36. Terry Guo Tai-Ming of Hon Hai (Foxconn) — US$18.3bn, up 17%. Hon Hai re-rated as it became the largest assembler of Nvidia's AI servers, offsetting flat iPhone volumes.

Guo founded the company in 1974 with a loan from his mother, making plastic TV knobs before building the iPhone assembly empire that made him Taiwan's richest man for years. AI servers are now his second act.

37. Yuan Fugen & family of Dongshan Precision — US$17.4bn, up 166%. AI servers and Apple's supply chain lifted demand for Dongshan's circuit boards and precision components.

Yuan started a small sheet-metal workshop in Suzhou in the 1980s and built it through serial acquisitions — MFLEX, Multek — into a global PCB and precision-parts maker, now run with sons Yuan Yongfeng and Yuan Yonggang. AI circuit boards are the new growth engine.

38. Wang Tao of DJI — US$16.4bn, flat. DJI held its roughly 70% share of the global consumer-drone market despite US sanctions, and is pushing into agricultural drones and robotics.

Frank Wang founded DJI in 2006 from his HKUST dormitory with the backing of his professor Li Zexiang, and pioneered the consumer drone. He is also the sector's godfather: early backer of Insta360 and mentor to a generation of Shenzhen hardtech founders.

39. Zhu Yiming of GigaDevice / ChangXin Memory — US$16.2bn, up 808%. The July listing of ChangXin Memory — now China's most valuable company at US$590bn — multiplied his fortune nearly tenfold; his listed GigaDevice is itself worth US$40bn.

Zhu founded GigaDevice in 2005 after a decade in Silicon Valley, then spun out its DRAM effort to found ChangXin in Hefei in 2016. He is the founder of China's memory champion and the year's biggest riser.

40. Lin Li of Liye Group — US$16.1bn, up 15%. His long-held stake in Ping An and other financial investments re-rated with the market.

Lin, a former bank clerk, built Liye through early investments in Shenzhen's financial champions in the 1990s and was once Ping An's largest private shareholder. One of the market's original 'stock gods', he keeps a low profile.

41. Peter Woo Kwong-ching & family of Wheelock / Wharf — US$15.9bn, up 2%. Hong Kong property stabilised and the family's retail and logistics assets held value.

Peter Woo married into shipping magnate Y.K. Pao's family and took over Wheelock and Wharf in 1986, building Harbour City into Hong Kong's most valuable retail property. He represents the old Hong Kong landlord fortunes that have outlasted the mainland developers.

42. Zou Zhinong & family of TFC Communication — US$15.6bn, up 58%. AI datacentre build-outs sent orders for TFC's optical devices soaring.

Zou founded the Suzhou company in 2005 making ceramic sleeves for fibre connectors and rode the optical-module boom alongside Zhongji Innolight. He is one of the quiet winners of Nvidia's supply chain.

42. Lui Yiu Tung & family of Galaxy Entertainment — US$15.6bn, down 12%. Macau's gaming recovery continued more slowly than hoped.

Lui is the second son of Galaxy founder Lui Che Woo, who died in 2024, and has run the group for years, building Galaxy Macau into the enclave's largest resort operator. The family is the only gaming fortune in the Top 100.

44. Pei Zhenhua & Rong Jianfen of Tianhua New Energy / CATL — US$14.6bn, up 28%. Lithium prices stabilised, and his early CATL stake kept compounding with the battery giant.

Pei built Tianhua from cleanroom garments for electronics factories into a lithium hydroxide producer, and put seed money into Zeng Yuqun's young CATL in 2015 — a stake now worth billions. He embodies the battery supply chain's intertwined fortunes.

44. Wang Wei of SF Express — US$14.6bn, down 25%. A price war in parcel delivery squeezed margins, though SF kept its premium lead and followed its 2024 Hong Kong listing with overseas expansion.

Wang founded SF in 1993 shuttling documents between Hong Kong and Guangdong, and built it into China's largest premium courier with its own cargo airline and airport. He is the champion of China's million couriers.

46. Kwong Siu Hing of Sun Hung Kai Properties — US$14.3bn, up 16%. Hong Kong property stabilised and SHK's rental portfolio held its value.

Kwong, 97, is the widow of SHK co-founder Kwok Tak-seng and remains the company's biggest shareholder and matriarch; her sons Raymond and Thomas run the group. She is the richest woman in Hong Kong.

47. Lee Ka Kit of Henderson Land — US$14.1bn, down 2%. Hong Kong and mainland property stabilised at lower levels.

Lee Ka Kit is the elder son of Henderson founder Lee Shau Kee, who died in March 2025 at 97; the brothers divided duties long ago, Ka Kit overseeing mainland China and Ka Shing Hong Kong. Their stewardship keeps Henderson in the Top 50.

47. Lee Ka Shing of Henderson Land — US$14.1bn, down 2%. Hong Kong property stabilised at lower levels, with Henderson's rental income steady.

Lee Ka Shing is the younger son of founder Lee Shau Kee and runs the group's Hong Kong business, including its flagship IFC complex. The brothers inherited jointly on their father's death in March 2025.

49. Joseph Lau Luen Hung & family of Chinese Estates — US$13.8bn, up 1%. His Hong Kong property and investment portfolio stabilised.

Lau made his first fortune manufacturing ceiling fans in the 1970s, then became one of Hong Kong's most feared corporate raiders before settling into property through Chinese Estates. Now largely retired after health problems, his fortune is managed for his family.

50. Wang Liping & family of Hengli Hydraulic — US$13.7bn, up 7%. The excavator cycle turned up and Hengli kept taking share from Bosch Rexroth and other foreign giants in hydraulic cylinders.

Wang started making pneumatic components in 1990 and broke the foreign monopoly on high-pressure cylinders — the 'heart' of every excavator — before expanding into pumps and linear drives. He is the model import-substitution champion now going global.

51. Richard Li Tzar Kai of PCCW — US$13.6bn, down 4%. His telecom and media holdings were steady, with insurer FWD's long-awaited listing the swing factor.

The younger son of Li Ka-shing, Richard famously sold STAR TV to Rupert Murdoch in 1993 and bought Hong Kong Telecom in 2000; he has since rebuilt around insurance and media. He operates entirely outside his father's empire, now run by brother Victor.

52. Lin Xia & Wang Xin of DingTai Hi-Tech — US$13.5bn, up 389%. AI server boards need vastly more drilling, and DingTai's micro drill bits dominate that niche — the stock quintupled.

The husband-and-wife team founded the company in Guangdong, specialising in the tungsten-carbide needles that drill circuit boards. They were among the year's fastest risers in the Top 100.

52. Bruce Cheng Chung-Hua & family of Delta Electronics — US$13.5bn, up 126%. Delta supplies some 60% of the power systems in AI servers, and its market cap climbed to around US$150bn.

Bruce Cheng founded Delta in 1971 making TV components and turned it into the world's largest power-supply maker; at 90 he remains its spiritual leader. The AI power crunch has made his company indispensable.

54. Wang Laichun of Luxshare — US$13.4bn, up 5%. Luxshare re-rated on AI hardware and continued share gains in Apple's supply chain.

Wang Laichun started as a Foxconn line worker in 1988, then left with brother Wang Laisheng — also in the Top 100 — to take over Luxshare in 2004, building it from connectors into Apple's biggest assembly challenger. From factory floor to Top 100, hers is the classic Shenzhen story.

55. Barry Lin Bai-Li & family of Quanta — US$13.3bn, up 23%. Quanta's AI server business boomed as it became a lead assembler of Nvidia's rack-scale systems.

Barry Lin co-founded Quanta in 1988 and built it into the world's largest laptop contract manufacturer before pivoting early into cloud servers. The AI datacentre wave is the biggest in its history.

56. Wang Laisheng & Wang Yayuan of Luxshare — US$13.2bn, up 5%. His fortune tracks Luxshare's re-rating on AI and Apple orders.

Wang Laisheng co-founded the business with his younger sister Wang Laichun after her decade on Foxconn's lines, handling capital and operations; daughter Wang Yayuan represents the next generation. Together the siblings hold two Top 100 seats.

57. Wang Ning & family of Pop Mart — US$13.0bn, down 52%. The Labubu frenzy cooled and Pop Mart's shares halved from their peak — though he is still worth far more than two years ago.

Wang founded Pop Mart in 2010 as a Beijing variety store aged 23, pivoting to designer toys and the blind-box model before Labubu became a global craze in 2024-25. At 39, he built the first Chinese toy IP to go truly global.

58. Pang Kang of Haitian — US$12.7bn, down 13%. Soy-sauce volumes were steady but consumer valuations sagged; Haitian completed a Hong Kong listing in 2025.

Pang joined the Foshan sauce factory as an engineer in 1982, led its management buyout in the 1990s, and built Haitian into the world's largest soy-sauce maker. China's kitchens are his moat.

59. Xie Qing of Fortinet — US$12.4bn, up 88%. Fortinet's shares neared record highs as AI-driven threats lifted cybersecurity spending.

Xie Qing founded Fortinet in Silicon Valley in 2000 with his younger brother Xie Hua — also in the Top 100 — after building and selling NetScreen to Juniper for US$4bn. The brothers are the most successful Chinese-born entrepreneurs in US cybersecurity.

59. Zong Fuli of Wahaha — US$12.4bn, down 5%. Wahaha's sales stabilised after the founder-era surge, while a high-profile inheritance dispute with half-siblings played out in court.

Zong Fuli is the only publicly recognised child of Wahaha founder Zong Qinghou, who died in February 2024; she spent two decades in the business, running its machinery arm and her own KellyOne brand, before consolidating control. Her succession battle has been the year's most watched family story.

61. Winston Wong & Grace Wong of Grace THW — US$12.3bn, up 207%. Copper-clad laminates — the base material of every AI circuit board — sent Grace THW's value up more than threefold.

Winston Wong is the eldest son of Formosa Plastics founder Wang Yung-ching; estranged from the group's core, he built his own materials empire in mainland China from 1996. Daughter Grace now works alongside him.

62. Tsai Ming-Kai & family of MediaTek — US$12.1bn, up 151%. MediaTek's Dimensity chips rode the AI phone upgrade and its push into datacentre silicon, lifting the market cap to around US$100bn.

Tsai founded MediaTek in 1997 as a spin-off from UMC and is known as the godfather of Taiwan's chip-design industry. AI handsets have given the veteran a second wind.

63. Li Shuirong of Rongsheng — US$12.0bn, up 34%. The refining cycle bottomed and Rongsheng's giant Zhejiang Petrochemical complex improved margins.

Li started as a carpenter, founded a textile mill in 1989, and marched steadily up the value chain from weaving to fibre to one of the world's largest private refineries. He embodies Zhejiang's manufacturer-to-heavy-industry climb.

64. Zhu Yi of Biokin / SystImmune — US$11.8bn, down 31%. Pharma valuations pulled back this year, though his wealth remains far above pre-deal levels.

Zhu founded Sichuan Biokin in 1996 and built Seattle-based SystImmune, whose cancer antibody deal with Bristol Myers Squibb — worth up to US$8.4bn — was the largest ever licensing deal for a Chinese biotech. One deal made him a Top 100 fixture.

65. Xie Hua of Fortinet — US$11.5bn, up 92%. Fortinet's run lifted both brothers' fortunes.

Xie Hua co-founded Fortinet in 2000 with elder brother Xie Qing as chief technology officer, having earlier co-founded NetScreen. He keeps the lower public profile of the two.

66. Chang Kuo-Hua & family of Evergreen — US$11.3bn, up 5%. Container shipping rates normalised but stayed profitable, and Evergreen's orderbook positioned it well.

Chang Kuo-Hua is a son of Evergreen founder Chang Yung-fa and has chaired the group since 2016, navigating family succession disputes after his father's death. Evergreen remains one of the world's top container lines.

67. Li Xiting of Mindray — US$11.2bn, down 25%. A slowdown in Chinese hospital procurement hit Mindray's growth.

Li co-founded Mindray in 1991 with Xu Hang and Cheng Minghe, leaving a state medical-device institute to make patient monitors affordable, and built it into China's largest medical-device maker. Now a Singapore citizen, he has been Singapore's richest man.

68. Morris Chang Chung-Mou of TSMC — US$11.0bn, up 64%. TSMC grew to a US$1.9tn market cap on insatiable AI chip demand, and his founding stake grew with it.

Chang spent 25 years at Texas Instruments before Taiwan recruited him to found TSMC in 1987 at the age of 56, inventing the pure-play foundry model on which the whole fabless industry now runs. At 95 he is the elder statesman of the chip age.

68. Joseph Tsai Chung-Hsin of Alibaba — US$11.0bn, down 11%. Alibaba's AI-driven recovery lifted the stock, though his wealth also reflects his sports investments.

Tsai gave up a US$700,000-a-year legal career in 1999 to join Jack Ma's apartment startup for a symbolic salary, structured its early financings, and is now Alibaba's chairman leading its AI turnaround. He also owns the Brooklyn Nets.

68. Li Ping of CATL — US$11.0bn, up 17%. CATL's record year lifted all founding shareholders.

Li co-founded CATL with Zeng Yuqun and Huang Shilin in 2011 and serves as vice-chairman, overseeing strategy. His is a pure CATL fortune.

71. Qi Shi & family of East Money — US$10.9bn, down 33%. Retail trading sentiment cooled from last year's frenzy, trimming East Money's brokerage and fund-sales boom.

Qi founded East Money in 2005 as a financial information site and built it into China's largest online broker and fund supermarket. He is the retail investor's billionaire.

71. Wei Jianjun & Han Xuejuan of Great Wall Motors — US$10.9bn, down 36%. The EV price war hit Great Wall's profits despite strong exports.

Wei took over a failing township vehicle works in 1990 aged 26 after his uncle's death and turned it into China's pickup and SUV king with the Haval brand. Exports and off-road niches are his counterattack.

73. Chen Tianqiao & Luo Qianqian of Shanda — US$10.7bn, up 6%. His global investment portfolio — including large US landholdings and equities — kept growing.

Chen founded Shanda with wife Luo Qianqian and brother Chen Danian in 1999, licensed the game Legend of Mir, and briefly became China's richest man in 2004 at just 31. He has since left business for brain science, funding the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute.

73. Gong Hongjia & Chen Chunmei of Hikvision — US$10.7bn, up 7%. Hikvision's steady recovery and his other tech investments compounded.

Gong made the greatest angel investment in Chinese history: 2.45 million yuan into schoolmates' startup Hikvision in 2001, a stake that peaked at over US$10bn. The former radio engineer is known as China's best angel investor.

75. Liang Wengen & Liang Zaizhong of Sany — US$10.6bn, up 1%. Sany's overseas expansion re-rated the excavator giant, capped by a Hong Kong listing last year.

Liang Wengen founded Sany in 1989 with three partners from a welding-materials shed in Hunan and broke the foreign grip on construction machinery; son Liang Zaizhong represents the next generation. Sany's excavators now sell in 150 countries.

76. Liu Wei of miHoYo — US$10.5bn, up 58%. MiHoYo's games kept generating global hits and profits.

Liu co-founded the studio in 2011 with Shanghai Jiao Tong dorm-mates Cai Haoyu and Luo Yuhao and serves as its president and public face. The three founders are all in the Top 100 — the only company with three seats there.

76. Zhang Bo of Weiqiao — US$10.5bn, down 10%. Aluminium prices were strong but Weiqiao's textile and power costs capped gains.

Zhang Bo is the son of the late Zhang Shiping, who built Weiqiao from a cotton-oil works into the world's largest aluminium producer and biggest textile maker in Shandong. He took over in 2019 and is pushing into lightweight materials for EVs.

78. Wang Xingxing of Unitree — US$10.3bn, a new face. Unitree's August IPO was the sensation of the year — the stock jumped 629% on debut, briefly valuing the humanoid-robot maker at US$66bn before settling around US$35bn.

Wang, 36, founded Unitree in 2016 after a short spell at DJI, starting with quadruped robot dogs whose viral videos and Spring Festival Gala dances made him the face of Chinese robotics. He is the year's second-highest new face.

79. Sun Piaoyang of Hengrui — US$10.3bn, down 31%. Pharma valuations pulled back, though Hengrui's string of global licensing deals — including with GSK — kept him well ahead of two years ago; Hengrui listed in Hong Kong in 2025.

Sun took over a state pharmaceutical factory in Lianyungang in 1990, led its buyout, and turned it into China's largest drugmaker. His wife Zhong Huijuan of Hansoh is also in the Top 100 — China's first pharma couple.

80. Tsai Hong-Tu & family of Cathay Financial — US$10.2bn, up 51%. Taiwan's financial groups re-rated with the stock market's AI-driven boom.

Tsai Hong-Tu chairs Cathay, built by his father Tsai Wan-lin into Taiwan's largest financial holding company; brother Tsai Cheng-Ta and cousins Tsai Ming-Hsing and Tsai Ming-Chung of Fubon are also in the Top 100. The Tsais are Taiwan's first financial family.

81. Wang Yusuo & Zhao Baoju of ENN — US$10.1bn, up 1%. ENN's gas distribution and energy-chemical businesses were steady.

Wang started delivering bottled gas in 1989 and built ENN into one of China's largest private gas distributors and clean-energy groups, with wife Zhao Baoju a co-founder. Their next bet is a private fusion-energy programme.

82. Andreas Sohmen-Pao & family of BW Group — US$10.0bn, up 30%. Tanker and gas-carrier markets stayed firm, and BW's fleet expansion paid off.

Andreas is the grandson of Hong Kong shipping legend Y.K. Pao and son of Helmut Sohmen; the family rebuilt around BW after selling its original fleet, and he chairs a group spanning gas carriers, product tankers and offshore wind. One of Hong Kong's great shipping dynasties.

83. Luo Yuhao of miHoYo — US$9.9bn, up 56%. His fortune tracks miHoYo's continued global gaming success.

Luo co-founded the studio in the 2011 dormitory startup with Cai Haoyu and Liu Wei, focusing on technology and engineering. He is the quietest of the three founders.

83. Yan Bin of Reignwood — US$9.9bn, up 2%. His beverage and property holdings were steady despite the long-running dispute over Red Bull's China rights.

Thai-Chinese tycoon Yan Bin brought Red Bull to China in 1995 in partnership with the Yoovidhya family and built it into the country's dominant energy drink, alongside Reignwood's property and aviation interests. The legal fight with Red Bull's Thai owners continues to cloud the fortune.

85. Chen Dongsheng & family of Taikang — US$9.8bn, down 1%. Insurance valuations stabilised as rates found a floor.

Chen founded the China Guardian auction house in 1993 and Taikang Life in 1996, pioneering China's private insurers before building a chain of retirement communities — the 'insurance plus eldercare' model. A former think-tank economist, he chronicled the 1992 generation of founders.

86. Tsai Cheng-Ta & family of Cathay Financial — US$9.7bn, up 51%. Taiwan's AI-driven market boom lifted Cathay's holdings.

Tsai Cheng-Ta, elder son of founder Tsai Wan-lin, shares the family fortune with brother Tsai Hong-Tu. The extended Tsai clan holds four Top 100 seats across Cathay and Fubon.

87. Liu Yonghao & family of New Hope — US$9.7bn, down 18%. The pork downcycle squeezed New Hope's farming profits.

Liu is the youngest of the four Liu brothers who founded the Hope Group in 1982; after the 1995 split he built New Hope into China's largest feed and agribusiness group and an early private-bank investor in Minsheng. Daughter Liu Chang now chairs the listed core.

88. Wang Zhiyong of HKC — US$9.6bn, a new face. HKC's IPO this year put a new display-panel fortune on the list.

Wang founded HKC in Shenzhen in 2001, moving from LCD assembly into panel manufacturing, and has taken share from the Korean giants and chased BOE and CSOT at home. He is a rare new face from the display industry.

89. Cen Junda of Hengrui / Hansoh — US$9.5bn, down 34%. His stakes in both Hengrui and Hansoh fell with the pharma pullback.

Cen was Sun Piaoyang's early partner in transforming the Lianyungang state factory and holds long-term stakes in both companies of the pharma couple. He is the quiet third man of China's first pharma family.

90. Cui Genliang & Cui Wei of Hengtong — US$9.4bn, up 111%. AI datacentres and offshore wind sent demand for Hengtong's optical fibre and submarine cables soaring — the stock more than doubled.

Cui Genliang, an army veteran, took over a bankrupt township factory in 1991 and built Hengtong into one of the world's largest cable makers; son Cui Wei now runs it. Submarine cables are the new strategic asset.

90. Xu Yangtian of Shein — US$9.4bn, up 59%. Shein's profits held up through the US tariff shock as it shifted supply chains and pushed into new markets.

Xu founded the business in Nanjing in 2008 selling wedding dresses online, mastered search-driven fast fashion, and built Shein into the world's largest online fashion retailer. The 42-year-old remains its most mysterious founder, never photographed at work.

90. Zhang Hejun of Deye — US$9.4bn, up 87%. Demand for storage inverters in blackout-prone emerging markets — from South Africa to the Middle East — nearly doubled Deye's value.

Zhang, 74, built Deye from appliance parts into a leading maker of hybrid inverters and energy-storage systems for the developing world. He is the oldest of the renewables winners.

93. Richard Tsai Ming-Hsing & family of Fubon Financial — US$9.4bn, up 33%. Taiwan's AI-driven bull market lifted Fubon's insurance and banking holdings.

Richard chairs Fubon with brother Daniel; they are cousins of the Cathay Tsais, making the extended family Taiwan's dominant financial dynasty with four Top 100 seats. Fubon also owns Taiwan Mobile and the Taipei Braves baseball team.

94. Yi Zhen of Flush (10jqka) — US$9.3bn, down 20%. Retail trading volumes cooled from last year's peak, trimming the trading-app maker's valuation.

Yi founded Flush in 2001 and built it into China's most-used stock-trading app, adding AI investing assistants ahead of rivals. His fortune rises and falls with the retail trader.

95. Zhou Chaonan & family of Range Intelligent Computing — US$9.2bn, up 43%. The AI datacentre shortage sent demand for Range's IDC and AIDC capacity sharply higher.

Zhou, 66, is a rare female founder in digital infrastructure, having pivoted from other businesses to build one of China's largest third-party datacentre operators around Beijing. AI computing power is her gold rush.

96. Lin Bin of Xiaomi — US$9.2bn, down 50%. Xiaomi's pullback hit him in line with Lei Jun.

Lin left Google China's engineering leadership to co-found Xiaomi in 2010 and served as its president, driving the smartphone and AIoT strategy. He is the second Xiaomi fortune in the Top 100.

96. Cao Renxian & Su Lei of Sungrow — US$9.2bn, down 9%. Solar-plus-storage kept growing globally, though inverter competition capped gains; Sungrow is worth around US$45bn.

Cao left his teaching post at Hefei University of Technology in 1997 with borrowed money to make solar inverters and built Sungrow into the world's largest inverter maker. He also chairs China's photovoltaic industry association.

98. Zhu Baoguo & family of Joincare / Livzon — US$9.1bn, down 6%. His pharmaceutical holdings were steady in a cooling sector.

Zhu made his first fortune in the 1990s with Taitai herbal tonic for women, then bought into Livzon Pharmaceutical and built Joincare into a diversified drugmaker. A classic first-generation health-products entrepreneur who successfully institutionalised.

99. Cai Huabo of Longsys — US$9.0bn, up 256%. The memory supercycle sent Longsys's module prices and profits soaring — the stock nearly quadrupled.

Cai founded Longsys in Shenzhen in 1999 trading memory chips and built it into one of the world's largest independent memory-module and storage makers, later buying Lexar from Micron. The DRAM cycle made him the year's fastest riser in storage.

99. Daniel Tsai Ming-Chung & family of Fubon Financial — US$9.0bn, up 36%. His fortune rose with Taiwan's market boom.

Daniel co-leads Fubon with brother Richard, overseeing its banking and telecom assets. The two brothers plus their Cathay cousins give the Tsai clan four Top 100 seats.

99. Xiang Guangda of Tsingshan — US$9.0bn, down 4%. Nickel and stainless markets stabilised, and Tsingshan's Indonesian empire kept compounding.

Xiang started making car doors and windows in 1988, moved into stainless steel, and built the world's largest nickel and stainless producer around Indonesian mines — famously staring down the 2022 nickel short squeeze. He is the undisputed king of nickel.

Appendix B: Beyond the Top 100 — the names that made the news

The year's stories were not confined to the Top 100. These 40 list members, in rank order, were the most in the news over the past year — through IPOs, battles, breakthroughs and comebacks.

In this appendix: Liu Qiangdong (JD), Wang Xing (Meituan), Robin Li (Baidu), Mao Wenchao & Qu Fang (Xiaohongshu), Yang Zhilin (Moonshot AI), Yu Renrong (OmniVision), Shen Nanpeng (HongShan), Liu Debing (Zhipu), He Xiaopeng (Xpeng), Chen Weiliang (MetaX), Xu Gaoming (Laopu Gold), Zhang Hongchao & Zhang Hongfu (Mixue), Zhang Jianzhong (Moore Threads), Zhang Lei (Hillhouse), Yang Yuanqing (Lenovo), Yu Hao (Dreame), Zhang Shengwei (Geek Miracle), Xu Yingtong (Sigenergy), Yan Junjie (MiniMax), Chen Zhiping (Smoore), Deng Taihua (AgiBot), Tao Ye (Bambu Lab), Li Xiang (Li Auto), He Yi (Binance), Xia Yu (Akeso), Ren Zhengfei (Huawei), Zhou Hongyi (360), Yu Minhong (New Oriental), Cheng Yixiao (Kuaishou), Liu Jingkang (Insta360), Zhang Changwu (Landspace), Wang Jianlin (Wanda), Kang Yonglai (Space Pioneer), Zhang Junjie (Chagee), Li Bin (NIO), Yang Yiqiang (CAS Space), Tian Gangyin (United Aircraft), Dong Mingzhu (Gree), Zhou Yong (LinkerHand), Gao Jiyang (Galaxea AI).

Liu Qiangdong of JD — No. 112, US$8.3bn, down 4%. Richard Liu started JD in 1998 as a four-square-metre electronics stall in Beijing's Zhongguancun, moved it online during the SARS outbreak and took it to Nasdaq in 2014, building China's largest retailer by revenue on its own logistics network. This year he personally delivered food orders to launch JD's zero-commission assault on Meituan's food-delivery business — China's business battle of the year — promising full social insurance for delivery riders and forcing the whole industry to follow.

Wang Xing of Meituan — No. 112, US$8.3bn, down 37%. A serial founder (Xiaonei, Fanfou), Wang founded Meituan in 2010, won the 'war of a thousand group-buying sites', merged with Dianping in 2015 and built the super-app that delivers much of China's meals. This year he was on the receiving end of the delivery war — and quietly became one of the biggest backers of embodied AI, investing in Galaxea, Unitree and half a dozen other robot startups.

Robin Li of Baidu — No. 114, US$8.2bn, down 4%. A search engineer at Silicon Valley's Infoseek, Li returned to found Baidu in 2000 and beat Google at home to dominate Chinese search. Now out of the Top 100 for the first time since 2004, he has bet the company on AI: the Ernie models and Apollo Go robotaxis keep him in the AI conversation — but the market is waiting for the payoff.

Mao Wenchao & Qu Fang of Xiaohongshu — Nos. 124 and 190, US$7.6bn and US$5.1bn, up 82% and 79%. Mao, a Stanford GSB graduate, and Qu, a former Bertelsmann executive, founded Xiaohongshu in Shanghai in 2013 as a shopping-notes community and built it into China's most coveted lifestyle platform. January 2025's 'TikTok refugee' wave made RedNote a household name in America overnight, and with its valuation re-rating and IPO chatter building, the pair rode the year's hottest consumer-internet story.

Yang Zhilin, 33, of Moonshot AI — No. 139, US$7.0bn, up 544%. A Tsinghua-trained AI researcher with a CMU doctorate and landmark transformer papers to his name, Yang founded Moonshot in 2023 and made its Kimi assistant the breakout of China's model race. This year its valuation surged as investors looked for the next DeepSeek.

Yu Renrong of OmniVision — No. 156, US$6.2bn, down 38%. An electronics engineer who made his first money distributing components, Yu founded Will Semiconductor in 2007 and pulled off the 2019 takeover of US image-sensor pioneer OmniVision — still the benchmark Chinese semiconductor acquisition. This year he was the list's biggest philanthropy story, funding the new Eastern Institute of Technology in his home town of Ningbo.

Shen Nanpeng of HongShan — No. 156, US$6.2bn, up 5%. Neil Shen co-founded Ctrip in 1999 and took it to Nasdaq before setting up Sequoia China in 2005, where early bets on Meituan, Pinduoduo, ByteDance and DJI made him the most successful venture investor in Chinese history. Renamed HongShan after the 2023 split from Sequoia, his calls on the AI and robotics cycle still move the startup world.

Liu Debing of Zhipu — No. 167, US$5.9bn, new. A Tsinghua computer-science professor, Liu spun Zhipu out of the university's knowledge-engineering lab in 2019, making it the most academic of China's 'AI tigers'. In January Zhipu became the world's first listed large-model company with its Hong Kong debut — the stock then went up more than four-fold. Co-founder Tang Jie joins the list with him at No. 251 with US$4.1bn.

He Xiaopeng of Xpeng — No. 172, US$5.6bn, down 21%. He founded browser maker UCWeb in 2004, sold it to Alibaba in 2014 in what was then China's biggest internet deal, and ploughed the proceeds into founding Xpeng the same year. He kept himself on front pages this year with Xpeng's AeroHT flying cars and its Iron humanoid robot, as the EV price war squeezed the core business.

Chen Weiliang, 50, of MetaX — No. 174, US$5.6bn, new. A veteran AMD executive, Chen founded MetaX in 2020 to build domestic GPUs. Its STAR Market debut in December jumped 693% on day one — the hottest of the 'little Nvidia' listings.

Xu Gaoming of Laopu Gold — No. 177, US$5.4bn, down 47%. Xu founded Laopu in 2009, betting that heritage craftsmanship could turn Chinese gold jewellery into a luxury brand in its own right. He became the face of the heritage-gold boom: Laopu's stores queued round the block and the stock multiplied — before giving back half since the summer.

Zhang Hongchao & Zhang Hongfu of Mixue — No. 236, US$4.3bn each, down 52%. Zhang Hongchao founded the business in 1997 as a shaved-ice stall in Zhengzhou; younger brother Zhang Hongfu joined a decade later and systemised the franchise model that made Mixue the world's largest food-and-beverage chain by store count, with over 45,000 outlets. March 2025's Hong Kong IPO was the consumer flotation of the decade — this year the shares cooled and their fortunes halved with them.

Zhang Jianzhong of Moore Threads — No. 257, US$4.0bn, up 197%. The former Nvidia China chief founded Moore Threads in 2020 and took it public on the STAR Market in December; revenue jumped 147% in the first half and a Hong Kong listing is next.

Zhang Lei of Hillhouse — No. 264, US$3.9bn, up 4%. Zhang founded Hillhouse in 2005 with US$20mn from the Yale endowment and wrote early cheques for Tencent and JD that became legend; the firm now manages tens of billions. China's best-known private-equity investor is back in the market conversation as Chinese assets re-rated.

Yang Yuanqing of Lenovo — No. 264, US$3.9bn, up 174%. Yang joined Legend in 1989 as a salesman, became CEO in 2001 and led the 2005 purchase of IBM's PC business — still the landmark Chinese tech acquisition. The AI-PC cycle and a booming infrastructure business re-rated Lenovo this year, giving one of China's longest-serving tech CEOs his best year on the list.

Yu Hao, 39, of Dreame — No. 273, US$3.7bn, up 194%. Yu founded Dreame in 2017 out of Tsinghua's aerospace student lab, starting inside Xiaomi's ecosystem before building his own global robot-cleaner brand. The stock tripled — then he announced Dreame would build cars, drawing comparisons with Xiaomi's Lei Jun and a lively debate about focus.

Zhang Shengwei of Geek Miracle — No. 273, US$3.7bn, new. Zhang founded the Shenzhen company behind the Geekvape brand in 2015 and built it into one of the world's largest independent vaping-hardware makers, born global with almost all sales overseas: its Geek Bar, Elf Bar and Lost Mary disposables are the best-selling vapes in the US and the UK, whilst its Geekvape hardware leads the enthusiast market. One of two vaping fortunes on this year's list.

Xu Yingtong of Sigenergy — No. 273, US$3.7bn, new. Xu left a senior Huawei role to found Sigenergy in 2022, betting that AI-managed batteries could redefine home and grid energy storage. Four years later it is one of the sector's hottest new listings.

Yan Junjie, 37, of MiniMax — No. 307, US$3.4bn, new. A former SenseTime vice-president, Yan founded MiniMax in 2021 and built it into one of China's 'AI tigers' with its Hailuo video and companion apps. MiniMax's January Hong Kong IPO raised US$538mn; the stock quadrupled and a second listing on the STAR Market is already being prepared.

Chen Zhiping of Smoore — No. 335, US$3.1bn, down 47%. Chen founded Smoore in Shenzhen in 2006 and turned it into the world's largest vaping-device maker — its Feelm ceramic coils power BAT's Vuse and Altria's NJOY, alongside its own Vaporesso devices and CCELL cannabis hardware — listing in Hong Kong in 2020 at the peak of the boom. US regulation and tariffs have since halved his fortune, but he remains the king of the vaping supply chain.

Deng Taihua of AgiBot — No. 341, US$3.1bn, new. A former Huawei computing vice-president, Deng teamed up with celebrity engineer Peng Zhihui in 2023 to build humanoid-robot maker AgiBot (Zhiyuan). Its reverse takeover of listed materials company Swancor was the deal of the year in robotics.

Tao Ye of Bambu Lab — No. 344, US$3.0bn, new. Tao left DJI in 2020 with four fellow engineers to found Bambu Lab, applying drone-grade engineering to consumer 3D printers. Born global — almost all sales are overseas — it has become the world's hottest 3D-printer brand and a new Shenzhen hardware legend in the making.

Li Xiang of Li Auto — No. 357, US$2.9bn, down 51%. Li founded car portal Autohome at 19 and took it to the NYSE, then founded Li Auto in 2015 and won the family-SUV segment with range-extender EVs. The launch of the i8 electric SUV — and its viral crash-test video — kept him in the headlines in a brutal year for EV makers.

He Yi of Binance — No. 381, US$2.8bn, new. A former TV presenter turned OKCoin marketing chief, He co-founded Binance with Zhao Changpeng in 2017 and built its brand, community and much of its day-to-day business. As Binance re-rated in the crypto bull market, the industry's most influential woman takes her own place on the list.

Xia Yu of Akeso — No. 426, US$2.5bn, new. Xia founded Akeso in Zhongshan in 2012, betting early on bispecific antibodies. Its lung-cancer drug ivonescimab beat Merck's Keytruda in a head-to-head trial — the shot heard around the pharma world — partnered with the US's Summit Therapeutics in a deal worth up to US$5bn. China's biotech coming of age, personified.

Ren Zhengfei of Huawei — No. 463, US$2.4bn, up 19%. A former army engineer, Ren founded Huawei in a Shenzhen flat in 1987 with US$3,500 and built it into China's tech champion — employee-owned, with his stake now worth US$2.4bn. This year the comeback went full throttle: Kirin chips in the Mate phones, HarmonyOS, and the Ascend AI silicon that Nvidia's Jensen Huang himself called a formidable rival.

Zhou Hongyi of 360 — No. 498, US$2.2bn, down 27%. Zhou founded the 3721 toolbar in 1998, sold it to Yahoo, then founded Qihoo 360 in 2005 and made free antivirus a national habit. Now China's influencer-CEO, he livestreams his way through the AI debate while remaking 360 as an AI security company.

Yu Minhong of New Oriental — No. 560, US$2.0bn, up 12%. China's most famous English teacher founded New Oriental in 1993 and took it to the NYSE in 2006; when the 2021 tutoring crackdown wiped out the business, he reinvented it as livestream shopping with East Buy. This year he steadied East Buy after the Dong Yuhui split and kept New Oriental growing.

Cheng Yixiao of Kuaishou — No. 583, US$1.9bn, down 52%. Cheng built the original GIF Kuaishou tool in 2011 before teaming up with Su Hua to turn it into China's second short-video platform. Its Kling AI video model — China's answer to Sora — made global headlines this year, even as the core platform's growth cooled.

Liu Jingkang, 35, of Insta360 — No. 583, US$1.9bn, down 66%. Liu founded Insta360 in 2015 straight out of university and dethroned GoPro in 360-degree cameras — a born-global Shenzhen story. June 2025's STAR debut made him the exchange's youngest founder; this year he launched the Antigravity drone, taking on DJI itself.

Zhang Changwu, 43, of Landspace — No. 696, US$1.6bn, new. Zhang founded Landspace in 2015, one of China's first commercial rocket companies, and in 2023 put the world's first methane-fuelled rocket into orbit. Zhuque-3's reusable-rocket campaign made global headlines — praised by Elon Musk as a potential Falcon 9-beater — and a STAR Market IPO is under review.

Wang Jianlin of Wanda — No. 771, US$1.5bn, flat. An army officer turned developer, Wang built Dalian Wanda from 1988 into the country's largest commercial-property empire and was China's richest man three times in the 2010s. A decade on he is still selling assets to pay down debt — the most visible survivor of the property era.

Kang Yonglai of Space Pioneer — No. 860, US$1.3bn, up 22%. A veteran of the state rocket academy CALT, Kang founded Space Pioneer in 2018; its Tianlong rockets are chasing Landspace towards China's first commercial reusable launches.

Zhang Junjie, 31, of Chagee — No. 904, US$1.3bn, down 37%. Zhang founded Chagee in Kunming in 2017, pitching milk tea as the 'oriental latte', and scaled it to thousands of stores. April 2025's Nasdaq IPO made him the youngest self-made face on the list; the tea-chain's US push is the test this year.

Li Bin of NIO — No. 1029, US$1.1bn, down 32%. Li founded car portal Bitauto in 2000 and took it to the NYSE, then founded NIO in 2014 as China's first premium EV brand. Its fight for scale — new Onvo and Firefly brands, battery-swap network and all — remains one of the most-followed stories in Chinese business.

Yang Yiqiang of CAS Space — No. 1097, US$1.0bn, new. A rocket scientist from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yang spun out CAS Space in 2018 and has put its Kinetica rockets into regular commercial service. He joined Landspace and Space Pioneer in putting commercial rocket founders on the list for the first time.

Tian Gangyin of United Aircraft — No. 1097, US$1.0bn, up 40%. Tian founded United Aircraft in 2014 to build heavy-lift drones — a bet that has ridden the low-altitude economy from cargo routes to emergency rescue.

Dong Mingzhu of Gree — No. 1157, US$1.0bn, new. Dong joined Gree as a 36-year-old saleswoman in 1990 and has run the air-conditioner giant since 2012, becoming China's most famous chairwoman. She joined the list as Gree rebranded stores around her own name — and kept making headlines at 72.

Zhou Yong of LinkerHand — No. 1184, US$1.0bn, new. Zhou founded LinkerHand (Linkerbot) in 2023 to make robotic dexterous hands — the unglamorous component every humanoid needs — and became one of embodied AI's first component billionaires.

Gao Jiyang, 34, of Galaxea AI — No. 1348, US$0.8bn, new. A Tsinghua-trained roboticist, Gao founded Galaxea in 2023; his humanoid startup raised over US$100mn in July, led by Meituan — part of the US$5bn that flowed into Chinese embodied AI in the first two months of the year alone.

Recent Hurun reports

Hurun Global Rich List 2026 (March 2026): the world has 4,020 dollar billionaires, up 578 — a new world record. China reclaimed the top spot with 1,110 dollar billionaires, up 287, ahead of the US with 1,000, up 130.

Hurun Global Unicorn Index 2026 (June 2026): 1,603 unicorns worldwide — non-listed companies founded in the 2000s and worth over US$1bn — a record high. The US leads with 806, China is second with 381.

Hurun China 500 (February 2026): the 500 most valuable non-state Chinese companies grew their combined value by CNY 21tn (+38%) to CNY 77tn.

Hurun Philanthropy List 2025 (November 2025): 14 of China's most generous philanthropists each donated more than CNY 100mn over the past year, CNY 3.83bn in total.

About Hurun Inc.

Promoting Entrepreneurship Through Lists and Research

Oxford, Shanghai, Mumbai

Established in the United Kingdom in 1999, Hurun is a research and media group, promoting entrepreneurship through its lists and research. Widely regarded as an opinion-leader in the world of business, Hurun generated 8 billion views on the Hurun brand in 2024, mainly in China and India, and recently expanding to the UK, US, Canada and Australia.

Best-known for the Hurun Rich List series, telling the stories of the world’s successful entrepreneurs in China, India and the world, Hurun’s other key series focus on young businesses and entrepreneurs, through the Hurun Unicorns Index, two Hurun Future Unicorns indices, the Hurun Uth series and the Hurun Pioneers series.

Hurun has grown to become the world’s largest list compiler for start-ups, ranking over 3000 start-ups across the world through its annual Hurun Global Unicorns Index (startups with a valuation of US$1bn+), and two Hurun Future Unicorn Indexes: Gazelles, most likely to ‘go unicorn’ within three years, and Cheetahs, most likely to ‘go unicorn’ within five years.

The Hurun Pioneering Young Startups and Entrepreneurs series focuses on startups set up within the last ten years and founders aged 45 or under.

The Hurun Uth series includes the Under40s, Under35s, Under30s and Under25s awards, representing the cream of each generation of young entrepreneurs who have founded businesses with a social impact and worth US$100m, US$50m, US$10m and US$1m respectively.

Other lists include the Hurun 500 series, ranking the most valuable companies in the world, China and India, the Hurun Global High Schools List, ranking the world’s best independent high schools, the Hurun Philanthropy List, ranking the biggest philanthropists and the Hurun Art List, ranking the world’s most successful artists alive today.

Hurun provides research reports co-branded with some of the world’s leading financial institutions and regional governments.

Hurun hosts high-profile events across China and India, as well as London, Paris, New York, LA, Toronto, Vancouver, Sydney, Luxembourg, Istanbul, Dubai and Singapore.