Who's who · Chinese labs
Z.ai (Zhipu AI)
Beijing maker of the GLM models, the first of China's AI tigers to list in Hong Kong.
At a glance
- Founded
- 2019
- Based in
- Beijing, China
- People
- Zhang Peng, Chief executive
- Known for
- GLM-5.3, GLM-5.2, Z.ai chat
- Licence
- MIT for most open-weight models; GLM-5.3 under its own GLM-5.3 licence
- Funding
- Public: Hong Kong Stock Exchange (listed January 2026)
- Listed
- Hong Kong Stock Exchange, 8 January 2026
- Website
- https://z.ai
Z.ai, formerly known as Zhipu AI, is a Beijing company that develops the GLM family of large language models. It was founded in 2019 as a spin-off from Tsinghua University and sells model access and AI services to businesses, as well as running its own chat app.
Zhipu releases many of its models as open weights. GLM-5 arrived in February 2026, and GLM-5.2, released in June under the MIT licence, is built for long-running tasks. GLM-5.3, released in August, keeps the GLM-5.2 base model and improves it through further training aimed at coding and cybersecurity. It uses a new GLM-5.3 licence rather than MIT.
On 8 January 2026 Zhipu listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising about HK$4.17 billion (about $558 million). It was the first of China's so-called AI tigers, the group of leading model start-ups, to go public. Zhang Peng is chief executive.
Sources
- Z.ai (Hugging Face), zai-org/GLM-5.3, 2026-08-28
- Z.ai (Hugging Face), zai-org/GLM-5.2, 2026-06-17
- Caixin Global, China's Zhipu AI Jumps in Hong Kong Debut, 2026-01-08
- TIME, Zhang Peng: The 100 Most Influential People in AI 2026, 2026-08-27
Facts last checked 2026-10-02