MiniMax Reports 280% Revenue Growth with Slower R&D Spending
At a Goldman Sachs conference on September 1, 2026, MiniMax co-founder Yeyi Yun revealed that the private Chinese AI lab achieved over 280% revenue growth in its first half of operations. This outpaced its 130% R&D spending increase and defied expectations tied to high-compute models typically associated with companies like NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA) and Broadcom (NASDAQ:AVGO). MiniMax's strategy focuses on cost efficiency, allowing it to deliver frontier AI capabilities without massive compute investments. The company claims its H suite open-source model has been downloaded over 24 million times. While these figures are self-reported and not audited, they suggest a shift in the AI landscape where cheaper models can achieve comparable performance with less infrastructure spending. This development challenges assumptions underpinning the current AI hardware trade. The implications for NVIDIA, AMD (NASDAQ:AMD), and AVGO could be significant if more companies adopt similar strategies to reduce reliance on expensive compute resources.
Topics: AI AVGO MiniMax NVIDIA R&D spending revenue growth