US export curbs have reshaped China’s tech scene around ‘chokepoints’: report

China’s tech start-ups now focus far more on key ‘chokepoint’ technologies, especially in the chip supply chain, Morgan Stanley report finds

Chinese technology companies seeking public listings are increasingly concentrated in areas where Beijing is trying to break its reliance on foreign technology, as years of US export controls reshape the country’s pipeline of stock market hopefuls.

About 20 per cent of companies that have launched initial public offerings on Shanghai’s Star Market so far this year are engaged in tackling key technological “chokepoints” facing China, compared with just 8.1 per cent in 2022, according to a Morgan Stanley analysis of 229 IPOs between 2022 and mid-July 2026.

About 60 per cent of firms in 2026 contributed to China’s push for supply chain self-sufficiency, up from 41 per cent four years ago, said the report published on Friday.

China’s critical tech bottlenecks have also narrowed since 2022, from a broad mix of strategic goods to a focus on the semiconductor supply chain, according to the report. Driven by expanding foreign trade curbs, the pressure points have moved upstream to raw materials, complex machinery, specialised parts and core manufacturing tools.

Of the 21 companies Morgan Stanley identified as addressing chokepoints this year, 19 are in the semiconductor supply chain. There is a particular focus on chokepoints in electronics, with 15 of the firms coming from that sector.

“As the chokepoints expanded in the past three to four years, more domestic companies became dedicated in those areas and by 2026 some of them had grown to a stage ready to tap into the capital market to further scale up,” Morgan Stanley analysts wrote.