Zhipu AI revenue doubles to $105M as net losses climb 60% amid fierce China AI rivalry

Zhipu's Losses Climb 60% After Chinese AI Rivalry Worsens

Zhipu reported a much faster-than-expected 60% surge in net losses for 2025, underscoring how China's AI upstarts continue to spend aggressively on developing artificial intelligence to keep pace with rivals. Revenue climbed to 724.3 million yuan ($105 million) last year, missing an average analyst estimate of 756 million yuan. Net loss for the same period was 4.7 billion yuan, while analysts were expecting only 3.76 billion yuan. The results are the first for the Beijing-based firm, officially known as Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC Ltd., since it raised $558 million in its Hong Kong initial public offering at the start of the year. The underwhelming profit underscored the hyper-competitive nature of China's AI arena, where newcomers like Zhipu vie with incumbents like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. for customers, talent, and computing resources -- often triggering price wars. Zhipu sells cloud-based access to its models and helps clients -- typically state-owned enterprises -- build customized AI solutions. It's also among a raft of Chinese AI upstarts and cloud service providers launching their own iterations of the OpenClaw agentic framework, hoping to capitalize on the consumer frenzy to drive compute usage. Read: China Becomes Agentic AI's Biggest Lab With OpenClaw Stampede Rival MiniMax Group Inc. -- which went public in Hong Kong one day after Zhipu -- earlier reported a 159% surge in its revenue for 2025 to $79 million, as losses widened. Shares of the twin AI model makers have more than quintupled since their debuts, surpassing Chinese internet heavyweights like Baidu Inc. and Kuaishou Technology in market capitalization. Zhipu last month released its latest flagship large language model, GLM-5, designed to improve coding and long-form agentic tasks. The model was designed to support domestic chips for inference, including Huawei Technologies Co.'s Ascend processors. The company is planning a second listing in Shanghai's Star Market, and has hired Guotai Haitong Securities Co. and China International Capital Corp. to advise on the float, according to a February filing.

China's Zhipu posts 132% rise in annual revenue on AI boom

BEIJING, March 31 (Reuters) - One of the leading players in China's crowded artificial intelligence sector, Zhipu AI (2513.HK), opens new tab, reported revenue growth of 131.9% for 2025 on Tuesday, in its first results update since raising HK$4.35 billion ($554.9 million) in a January listing. The spinoff from Tsinghua University has drawn attention in Silicon Valley with its latest GLM-5 model, said to match U.S. rivals on several performance metrics. Revenue from ⁠its core business of on-premise deployment, in which Zhipu sells models for installation on clients' local servers, rose more than 100% to 533.9 million yuan ($77.3 million) in 2025. Cloud-based revenue from API services sold to enterprises and individuals climbed to 190.4 million yuan. Zhipu posted a net loss of 4.72 billion yuan for 2025, compared with a loss of 2.96 billion in 2024. Its net adjusted loss ⁠for the year was 3.18 billion yuan. The company has said it expects to reach profitability through revenue growth and improved operating efficiency, without giving a timeframe. The results come amid growing competition in China's AI sector, ⁠as companies race to release updated models and step up marketing. Zhipu, also known as Knowledge Atlas Technology, competes with startups such as MiniMax, Moonshot AI ⁠and DeepSeek, as well as internet giants ByteDance and Alibaba (9988.HK), opens new tab. Rival MiniMax posted a net loss of $1.87 billion for 2025. Zhipu has ⁠been expanding abroad, particularly in Southeast Asia, but China remains its primary market. ($1=6.9074 Chinese yuan renminbi) ($1=7.8393 Hong Kong dollars) Reporting by Liam Mo, Che Pan and Laurie Chen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Asia Pacific Laurie Chen Thomson Reuters Laurie Chen is a China Correspondent at Reuters' Beijing bureau, covering politics and general news. Before joining Reuters, she reported on China for six years at Agence France-Presse and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. She speaks fluent Mandarin.

Zhipu AI shares surge 35% as annual revenue more than doubles By Investing.com

Investing.com-- Shares of Zhipu AI- trading as Knowledge Atlas Tech Joint Stock (HK:2513)- rallied on Wednesday after the Chinese artificial intelligence major said it more than doubled revenue in 2025 on strong domestic demand for artificial intelligence. Zhipu shares jumped as much as 35% to HK$938.0, a record high. The stock tracked a broader rally in Chinese technology stocks, with the Hang Seng index up 2%. Zhipu said its revenue jumped 131.9% to HK$724.3 million ($105.2 million) in the 12 months to December 31, 2025. Get more insights on China's top AI firms by subscribing to InvestingPro The company said on-premise deployments- the running of AI models on its own servers- accounted for 74% of total revenue, while revenue from cloud-based deployments- where the company does not directly host its AI services- jumped nearly 300%. Cloud deployments allow the company to service more customers but with much smaller margins. Zhipu said the strong revenue growth was driven chiefly by its continued iteration of new AI models, as well as robust market demand. But the company's net loss widened by 60% to 4.7 billion yuan, while its gross profit margin also shrank. The company flagged strong growth in the pricing of its AI services, especially as demand for its open-source GLM models rose sharply through 2025. Zhipu is among China's so-called "AI tigers," a group of companies that are regarded as the forefront of the country's AI development efforts. Zhipu said in its earnings release that nine of China's top 10 internet companies are "deeply integrated" in GLM, and that its platform had crossed 4 million registered users as of March 2026.