Beijing Zhipu Huazhang Technology Co., Ltd.,[a] branded as Z.ai, is a Chinese technology company specializing in artificial intelligence (AI). The company was formerly known as Zhipu AI until its rebranding in 2025.[1][2]
(2025_logo).jpg){kind=small} Logo, 2025 | |
| Z.ai | |
Native name | 北京智谱华章科技有限公司 |
| Company type | Private |
| Industry | Artificial intelligence |
| Founded | 2019 |
| Founders |
|
| Headquarters | Beijing, China |
Key people |
|
| Products | ChatGLM GLM-4 GLM-4-Plus AutoGLM GLM-4.5 GLM-4.5V GLM-4.5-Air |
Number of employees | 800+ (2024) |
| Website | |
As of 2024, it is one of China's "AI Tiger" companies by investors and considered to be the third largest LLM market player in China's AI industry according to the International Data Corporation.[3]
History
edit
The startup company began from Tsinghua University and was spun out as an independent company.[4]
In 2023, it raised 2.5 billion yuan (approx. million in USD) with the help of Alibaba Group Holding and Tencent Holdings.[5][6][7] Other investors of the company include Ant Group, Meituan, Xiaomi and HongShan.[6]
In May 2024, Prosperity7 Ventures, LLC, a Saudi Arabian finance firm, funded Zhipu AI million USD.[8]
In March 2024, Zhipu AI said that they were developing a Sora-like technology to achieve artificial general intelligence (AGI).[9] In July 2024, they debuted their "Ying" text-to-video model.[10]
After OpenAI announced an API block for their services in some areas beginning in July 2024, Zhipu AI have announced a "Special Migration Program" for OpenAI API users.[11]
In October 2024, Zhipu AI released GLM-4.0, an open-source end-to-end speech large language model. The model can replicate human-like interactions and has the capability to adjust its tone, emotion, or dialect based from user's preference.[12]
In July 2025, Zhipu AI released GLM-4.5, their next iteration of language model which achieves SOTA on popular benchmarks.[13] Along with the release of their model, the company also rebranded itself as Z.ai.[1][2] In August 2025, Z.ai announced that their GLM models are compatible with Huawei’s Ascend processors.[2] On August 11, 2025, Z.ai released a new vision-language model (VLM) with a total of 106B parameters, GLM-4.5V, achieving SOTA against other open-source variants like Kimi-K2.[14][15]
Products and services
editChatGLM
editChatGLM is a series of pre-trained dialogue models jointly released by Zhipu AI and Tsinghua KEG in 2023. According to NVIDIA, their open-source ChatGLM3-6B in the ChatGLM 3.0 series described it as having "smooth dialogue and easy deployment" compared to the first two generations.[16]
ChatGLM 4.5, released in July 2025 by Z.ai, is priced at 13% of DeepSeek's cost and can run at only eight NVIDIA H20 chips.[17]
Ying
editDebuted in July 2024, Ying is a text-to-video model that can generate image and text prompts into a six-second video clip for around 30 seconds. The service is available at their official website and mobile applications integrated with their ChatGLM chatbot.[10]
AutoGLM
editReleased in October 2024, AutoGLM is an AI agent application that uses voice commands to complete tasks within a smartphone. The app can analyze complex tasks such as ordering an item from a nearby store and repeating an order based from the user's shopping history. The app was made as a rival to Apple's on-device AI system, Apple Intelligence.[18]
The AI tool runs on a series of AI models and chatbots, such as their ChatGLM chatbot, to process the required actions.[18]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b Cheng, Evelyn (28 July 2025). "China's latest AI model claims to be even cheaper to use than DeepSeek". CNBC. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
- ^ a b c "Unicorn Z.ai adapts models for Huawei chips to broaden China's AI ecosystem". South China Morning Post. 9 August 2025. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
- ^ "Baidu, SenseTime lead China's market for business-focused LLMs, says IDC". South China Morning Post. 22 August 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ "China's AI startups race for customers as titans like Alibaba cut prices". Nikkei Asia. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ Kharpal, Arjun (20 October 2023). "Alibaba, Tencent among investors in China's rival to OpenAI with million funding". CNBC. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ a b "Alibaba and Tencent lead US million total investment this year in Zhipu AI". South China Morning Post. 20 October 2023. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ "Alibaba, Tencent Join Big Backers for Chinese AI Startup Zhipu". Bloomberg.com. 20 October 2023. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ "Saudi Fund Joins Million Financing for China AI Firm Zhipu". Bloomberg.com. 31 May 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ "Zhipu AI says it is developing Sora-like technology as a path to AGI". South China Morning Post. 16 March 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ a b "Zhipu AI launches video model as more Chinese tech firms take on OpenAI's Sora". South China Morning Post. 27 July 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ "Chinese AI firms woo OpenAI users as U.S. company plans API restrictions". CNBC. 25 June 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2024.
- ^ Razzaq, Asif (25 October 2024). "Zhipu AI Releases GLM-4-Voice: A New Open-Source End-to-End Speech Large Language Model". MarkTechPost. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
- ^ "GLM-4.5: Reasoning, Coding, and Agentic Abilities". 28 July 2025. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
- ^ "zai-org/GLM-4.5V · Hugging Face". huggingface.co. 18 August 2025. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
- ^ "GLM-4.5V". Z.AI API DOC. Retrieved 25 August 2025.
- ^ "ChatGLM — NVIDIA NeMo Framework User Guide latest documentation". docs.nvidia.com. Retrieved 2 November 2024.
- ^ Ginn, Aaron. "China's Z.ai and America's Self-Defeating AI Strategy". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 19 August 2025.
- ^ a b "China's Zhipu AI says its app can operate your smartphone for you". South China Morning Post. 30 October 2024. Retrieved 2 November 2024.