Malaysia Finally Has a Homegrown AI Chip Designer on the Market

• SkyeChip Berhad’s blockbuster Bursa debut signals a turning point for Malaysia’s semiconductor ambitions
• The Penang-based AI chip designer’s IPO was oversubscribed 95 times, raising RM352 million in the country’s largest IPO haul in 16 years.

Malaysia has spent decades being very good at the part of semiconductors that doesn’t require owning the idea. Assembly, testing, packaging; the country built a formidable industry on the back end of the chip supply chain. SkyeChip Bhd is the Malaysia AI chip designer that is starting to change that. Its Main Market debut on May 20 is the clearest signal yet that the front end, where intellectual property lives and margins are genuinely lucrative, is no longer entirely out of reach.

The Penang-based integrated circuit designer, Malaysia’s first homegrown AI chip designer to list on Bursa, raised RM352 million in an IPO oversubscribed 95 times, the largest amount of funds attracted in a Malaysian listing in 16 years.

Its stock opened at RM3.50, nearly four times the IPO price of 88 sen, hit a high of RM3.80, and closed at RM2.21 with 292.9 million shares changing hands. At closing, the company’s market capitalisation stood at RM3.97 billion.

The listing itself is the story more than the price action.

What SkyeChip actually does

Founded in 2019, SkyeChip is the Malaysia AI chip designer now setting the pace for what homegrown IC design can look like at a commercial scale. It does not manufacture chips. It designs the silicon intellectual property embedded inside them, reusable building blocks that customers license and integrate into their own products, alongside custom application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) built to a client’s exact specification.

That business sits at the knowledge-intensive end of the semiconductor value chain, where ownership of IP generates recurring licensing revenue rather than one-off assembly fees. CEO Datuk Fong Swee Kiang framed the company’s direction at the listing ceremony: “With access to advanced technology and strategy platforms, we are expanding into next-generation silicon solutions across AI, high-performance computing, and advanced architecture.”

The company was founded in 2019. Its growth trajectory since has been steep: revenue expanded from RM57.2 million in FY2023 to RM119.5 million in FY2025, a compound annual growth rate of 44.6%. Net profit reached RM35.9 million in FY2025, with a net margin of 30.1%. The company entered listing with zero borrowings and a cash balance of RM57.6 million. Its most recent disclosed results, for the period ended March 31, 2026, showed revenue of RM155 million, up 29.7% year-on-year, with full-year profit rising to RM48 million.

The standout driver within those numbers is memory interface IP, where revenue grew 530% between FY2023 and FY2025, pulled along by demand for High Bandwidth Memory and LPDDR upgrade cycles tied directly to AI infrastructure buildout.

Analyst conviction, pre- and post-listing

Research coverage ahead of listing was notably bullish. Kenanga Research initiated with an “Outperform” call and a target price of RM2.00, more than double the IPO price, arguing that “AI inference economics are driving rapid adoption of custom ASICs” and that SkyeChip is positioned to serve companies that need custom silicon but lack the resources to build full in-house chip teams.

Post-debut, Hong Leong Investment Bank issued a Buy at RM3.94, Kenanga revised its target to RM3.82, and MBSB set a target of RM3.60, all reflecting the conviction that even at closing-day prices, there is further upside.

For context on where that valuation sits globally: international silicon IP companies trade at 124x price-to-earnings or higher, with Arm at 201x and Taiwan’s M31 at 281x. SkyeChip, even at its debut closing price, trades at a meaningful discount to those peers.

The government is behind the business

SkyeChip’s listing does not exist in isolation from Malaysia’s policy direction. The company received a formal offer letter just before its debut, granting access to Arm Holdings’ Arm Flexible Access platform, part of a government-backed RM1.1 billion partnership with the British chip IP firm.

SkyeChip is one of three Malaysian companies, alongside Oppstar Bhd and GreatAsic Technology, to receive access under the scheme, which also targets training 10,000 local IC design professionals. That initiative sits within Malaysia’s National Semiconductor Strategy and the New Industrial Master Plan 2030 (NIMP 2030), which has set an explicit target of developing 10 local semiconductor companies capable of generating revenues between RM1 billion and RM4.7 billion.

SkyeChip is building toward that range; its roadmap includes HBM4 and LPDDR6 memory interface IP, custom AI accelerators, and Arm-based CPU platforms. The China+1 dynamic also works in its favour. As Chinese chipmakers diversify supply chains away from US IP restrictions, Malaysian designers with non-US-aligned portfolios are increasingly attractive. China accounts for 56.5% of SkyeChip’s FY2025 revenue and is its largest single market.

The confidence in the capital structure

The IPO raised RM352 million with no offer-for-sale component, which means co-founders Datuk Fong Swee Kiang and CTO Teh Chee Hak are not reducing their stakes. Every ringgit goes into the business: more than 60% into R&D, around 16% into operational and computing infrastructure, and the remainder into licensing tools and working capital.

The 22 cornerstone investors, including EPF, Khazanah Nasional, Lembaga Tabung Angkatan Tentera, Lembaga Tabung Haji, AHAM Asset Management, and AIA, collectively took up close to 60% of the institutional tranche. For a company that started six years ago with one share and one shareholder, that institutional weight carries a message of its own.

Where the risks sit

The risk profile here is worth being clear-eyed about. Over 90% of SkyeChip’s revenue comes from customers in China and Taiwan, which means any escalation in US export controls targeting the region has direct consequences for the business. Customer concentration is high; the top five clients accounted for 72% of FY2025 revenue.

The business model is also more project-driven than royalty-based, requiring consistent new design wins rather than sitting on a compounding licensing base. The Arm access, while strategically valuable, is still being finalised. And the company’s Pioneer Status tax incentive expired in September 2025; rejection of renewal would lift its effective tax rate from roughly 2.7% to 24%.

None of these is disqualifying. But they are the difference between a good story and a complete one.

The bigger picture

Malaysia’s electrical and electronics sector generates around RM711 billion in annual exports, its largest export category, with most of that value sitting in back-end production. SkyeChip does not shift that picture overnight.

SkyeChip’s listing puts a credible Malaysia AI chip designer, profitable, publicly listed, and backed by institutional capital, in the part of the semiconductor stack the country has long said it wants to occupy. That is a harder thing to build than a headline. The debut was the easy part.