Zhipu AI

Zhipu AI, officially Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology Co., Ltd., is an artificial intelligence company that originated as a spin-off from Tsinghua University in 2019. The company was founded by professors Tang Jie and Li Juanzi from the university's Department of Computer Science and Technology, emerging from the Knowledge Engineering Group (KEG) research lab. Initially focused on knowledge graphs, the firm pivoted in 2020 to develop large language models (LLMs), a move that catalyzed its growth. The company, now led by CEO Zhang Peng, has become one of China's prominent "AI Tiger" startups.

Zhipu AI operates on a Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) business model, providing its core technology, the General Language Model (GLM) series, to a diverse client base. These models are engineered to be proficient in both Chinese and English. The company serves both business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) markets. Its B2B clientele consists of enterprises in sectors like finance, healthcare, and manufacturing, as well as government organizations, which accounted for a significant portion of its revenue in 2024. For consumers, Zhipu AI offers the "Zhipu Qingyan" app, an AI assistant. Revenue is generated through API calls, cloud and on-premises privatization for enterprises, and subscription fees for its consumer app.

The company's product portfolio is built around its GLM series. Key offerings include ChatGLM, a series of pre-trained dialogue models, and AutoGLM, an AI agent designed to automate digital tasks on smartphones and computers by using voice commands to interact with various apps. In July 2024, Zhipu expanded into multimodal AI with the launch of "Ying," a text-to-video generator. The firm has also made a number of its models open-source, such as GLM-4.0 and GLM-4.5, to foster a developer community. To enhance its offerings, Zhipu AI has formed strategic partnerships with hardware companies like Huawei and Qualcomm to integrate its models with advanced chipsets for deployment on devices such as smartphones and vehicles.

Zhipu AI has secured substantial funding from a mix of private and state-backed investors, including Alibaba, Tencent, Meituan, and Prosperity7 Ventures, the venture capital arm of Saudi Aramco. As of April 2025, the company had raised over $1.4 billion through 12 funding rounds. The company is actively expanding its international presence, with a focus on Southeast Asia, and has established innovation centers in several countries to offer "sovereign AI" solutions that prioritize data localization. The company has pre-filed for an IPO and is reportedly considering a Hong Kong listing.

Keywords: Zhipu AI, General Language Model, GLM, Model-as-a-Service, MaaS, artificial intelligence, large language models, ChatGLM, AutoGLM, text-to-video, open-source AI, Tsinghua University, Tang Jie, Li Juanzi, Zhang Peng, AI-in-a-box, sovereign AI, AI agent, multimodal AI, natural language processing, Chinese AI, generative AI, AI development, knowledge engineering, AI infrastructure, Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology