Zhipu AI (GLM) — Database

01

Overview

Zhipu AI (Z.ai) is a Beijing lab with roots in Tsinghua University and the first Chinese AI lab to list publicly. Its GLM series spans open-weight text, vision and code models; the GLM-5 generation is a frontier release reportedly trained on domestic Huawei Ascend chips.

3Products 2People 12Company links

02

Products

3

GLM-5.2

Flagship model, 1M-token context (2026)

GLM-5.1

Long-horizon agentic model

GLM-4.6V

Vision-language multimodal model

03

Highlights

2

01First Chinese AI lab to IPO (Hong Kong Stock Exchange, 2026)
02GLM-5 (2026) reported as trained entirely on domestic Huawei Ascend hardware

04

People

2

Tang JieCo-founder & Chief Scientist, Zhipu AI Zhang PengCEO, Zhipu AI

0512

Upstream suppliers

MetaX

Zhipu GLM-5 supports MetaX and other domestic chips.

Infinigence AI

Infinigence provides heterogeneous compute and inference services to model companies such as Zhipu AI.

Downstream customers

SiliconFlow

SiliconFlow hosts inference services for domestic open models such as Zhipu's.

Competitors

StepFun

Both are among China's leading LLM startups (the so-called "six tigers"), competing directly in foundation model development, valuation and Hong Kong IPO progress. Zhipu listed on HKEX in January 2026 with a valuation topping RMB 500 billion, while StepFun closed a B+ round of over RMB 5 billion and plans a 2026 Hong Kong listing.

Source

MiniMax

Zhipu AI and MiniMax compete in China's large-model market but follow different commercial paths: Zhipu focuses on enterprise models and localized deployment, while MiniMax emphasizes consumer multimodal applications and overseas markets. The report notes that their paths may converge over time.

Source

Baichuan AI

Zhipu AI and Baichuan AI are both members of China's so-called "six little dragons" of large models (Zhipu, MiniMax, Moonshot AI, Baichuan, 01.AI and StepFun), and compete directly in the Chinese foundation-model market and its commercial applications, including healthcare-related verticals.

Source

Kimi (Moonshot AI)

Zhipu AI and Moonshot AI compete in China's foundation-model and developer-services market, where both are releasing increasingly capable models and vying for enterprise customers and developer adoption.

Source

iFlytek

Zhipu AI and iFlytek compete in enterprise LLMs

4Paradigm

Zhipu AI and 4Paradigm compete in enterprise LLMs

Kunlun Tech

Zhipu AI and Kunlun compete in the general LLM market

06

Funding

12

2021
A round
Amount undisclosed
Fortune Venture Capital, Jiangmen Venture Capital, HuaKong Equity Investment, Turing AI Institute of Nanjing, Beijing Dafan, Fangrongpin Investment
Source
Jan 8, 2026
Listing
Amount undisclosed
Source
Apr 18, 2025
Strategic investment
CNY 2 亿
Shunxi Fund
Source
Mar 19, 2025
Strategic investment
CNY 3 亿
Chengdu High-Tech Zone
Source
Mar 13, 2025
Strategic investment
CNY 5 亿
Huafa Group
Source
Mar 3, 2025
Strategic investment
CNY 10 亿
Hangzhou City Investment, Shangcheng Capital
Source
Dec 17, 2024
Strategic investment
CNY 30 亿
Alibaba Group, Tencent, Legend Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Zhongguancun Science City, Hillhouse Investment
Source
Sep 5, 2024
D round
Several billion RMB
Lead investor: Zhongguancun Science City
Zhongguancun Science City, Alibaba Group, Tencent, Legend Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, GL Ventures
Source
May 31, 2024
C round
USD 4 亿
Lead investor: Prosperity7 Ventures
Prosperity7 Ventures, Beijing Artificial Intelligence Industry Investment Fund
Source
Apr 28, 2024
战略融资
CNY 25 亿
社保基金中关村自主创新基金, 美团, 蚂蚁, 阿里, 腾讯, 小米, 金山, 顺为, Boss直聘, 好未来, 红杉, 高瓴
Source
Oct 20, 2023 Announced
Strategic investment
CNY 25 亿
Legend Capital, Meituan, Ant Group, Alibaba Group, Tencent, Xiaomi
Source
Sep 26, 2022
B round
Several hundred million RMB
Qiming Venture Partners, Legend Capital, China Renaissance, Alibaba Cloud, Tencent, Meituan
Source

07

Events

0

Not yet listed

08

Related projects

0

Not yet listed

09

Topics

6

Llm Foundation Models multimodal-ai Ai Agents model-as-a-service open-source-models

10

Coverage

2

ArticleAlibaba Is Finally Seeing Money Come BackJul 27, 2026

ArticleChinese 1,000-GPU Platform for 100B-Scale Model Training Goes Live, With 91% Linear Speedup From 70B to 130B ModelsJul 26, 2026

Overview

Products

GLM-5.2

GLM-5.1

GLM-4.6V

Highlights

People

Related companies

Upstream suppliers

Downstream customers

Competitors

Funding

A round

Listing

Strategic investment

Strategic investment

Strategic investment

Strategic investment

Strategic investment

D round

C round

战略融资

Strategic investment

B round

Events

Related projects

Topics

Coverage