The first of China’s ‘AI tiger’ goes public as Zhipu climbs in Hong Kong debut
The Zhipu AI logo is seen displayed on a smartphone screen.
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Knowledge Sharing Atlas Technology JSC, better known as Zhipu, rose further in its Hong Kong debut following a $558 million initial public offering that became the first company among China’s “AI Tigers” to go public.
The stock rose nearly 10 percent above the offer price. 116.20 Hong Kong dollar ($15) on Thursday, with about 37.4 million shares offered by the Beijing-based startup.
The IPO valued Zhipu at approximately HK$4.3 billion, making it one of the largest AI IPOs in recent years.
Founded in 2019 by researchers from China’s leading universities, Zhipu represents the country’s first major language model company to go public via an IPO. The listing marks another major milestone for China’s broader AI sector, following a recent wave of listings by AI chip makers.
Strongly backed by Beijing, the firm is also considered one of China’s so-called “AI Tigers”; Startups developing large language models to rival companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Other notable companies in the group include the famous Deepseek, which shook up the markets with the launch of one of its LLM models early last year.
While not as well-known globally as Deepseek, Zhipu gained attention last year when American AI giant OpenAI highlighted the significant progress it had made as a rival at the “front lines” of China’s race for leadership in AI.
firm reportedly It has offices in the UK, Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East. It also runs joint “innovation hubs” projects in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and Vietnam.
Zhipu’s progress comes despite placement Open The US Commerce Department’s Entity List was published in January last year after US officials said it was working with the Chinese military. The firm’s ability to train AI models has also been constrained by U.S. restrictions on access to advanced semiconductor technology and expertise.
According to Zhipu prospectusIt plans to allocate 70% of its IPO proceeds to research and development of general-purpose large artificial intelligence models. The firm reported revenue of 312.4 million yuan in 2024.
Rival Chinese AI start-up MiniMax is expected to launch its own bid on Friday, following a confidential application last year.
