by JIANG Yiman

Shares of MiniMax (00100.HK), a Chinese artificial intelligence startup, surged in Hong Kong on March 10 as enthusiasm around the fast-growing open-source AI agent OpenClaw lifted AI-related stocks.

The stock jumped more than 28% intraday to a record HK$1,286 before closing up 22.37% at HK$1,220, extending a 23.77% gain the previous day and lifting the company's market value above HK$380 billion.

The rally has been partly driven by the popularity of OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent platform widely adopted by developers. MiniMax is among the large-model providers natively supported by the framework.

The company launched MaxClaw, a cloud-based AI assistant built on OpenClaw, on Feb. 26 and expanded its multimodal offerings on March 9 with new capabilities including the Voice Maker speech model and Music Maker music model.

MiniMax listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Jan. 16 at HK$165 per share and now trades about 6.4 times above its IPO price, making it one of Hong Kong's best-performing stocks this year.

Analysts remain positive on the outlook. UBS initiated coverage with a buy rating, saying MiniMax is well positioned as the AI agent ecosystem expands.

Kaiyuan Securities said growing adoption of OpenClaw could drive demand for model tokens, inference computing and cloud services, potentially boosting usage of MiniMax's models.

MiniMax on March 2 reported its first results since listing. Revenue for the year ended Dec. 31, 2025 rose 158.9% year on year to $79.0 million, with more than 70% of revenue generated overseas.

Gross profit rose to $20.1 million and gross margin improved to 25.4%. Adjusted net loss was $250 million, though the loss ratio narrowed from a year earlier.

Revenue from AI-native products climbed 143.4% to $53.1 million, while income from the company's open platform and enterprise AI services rose 198% to about $26 million as paying customers increased.

Analysts say the stock could attract more mainland capital if MiniMax becomes eligible for southbound Stock Connect trading, potentially as early as August.