Zhipu releases GLM-5 AI model, intensifying race with DeepSeek ahead of Lunar New Year

China's Zhipu Unveils New AI Model, Jolting Race With DeepSeek

Zhipu's GLM-5 has been measured directly against Anthropic's Claude Opus series and will officially roll out early Thursday, according to the company. Chinese AI developer Zhipu is set to release an upgrade of its flagship model, accelerating a race to preempt an expected new product from DeepSeek. The latest iteration of Zhipu's large language model, dubbed GLM-5, is designed to tackle complex coding and agentic tasks and has been measured directly against Anthropic's Claude Opus series, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. GLM-5, with more than double the number of parameters of its predecessor, will officially roll out early Thursday, Zhipu said. Markets have this month shown elevated sensitivity to new artificial intelligence releases that threaten established businesses, hitting everything from legal and compliance software to video games. Zhipu itself, listed at the start of this year, has jumped more than 50% this week after JPMorgan initiated coverageBloomberg Terminal and GLM-5 was first launched in stealth mode over the weekend. The Beijing-based AI company joins peers including Moonshot AI and ByteDance Ltd. in rolling out new models ahead of the Lunar New Year. The industry expects DeepSeek to release its next-generation architecture during the holiday, in a move likely to set a new benchmark for Chinese open-source models. Moonshot released its latest LLM last month, and now enjoys a position topping performance charts among open-source providers. ByteDance's new Seedance 2 video model has elicited high praise for its performance and yielded a number of impressive demonstrations that haven been widely shared online. Valued at roughly $18 billion, Zhipu is the first major global LLM builder to list on a stock market. It got its start in 2019, led by Tsinghua University researchers, with backing from a long list of government funds and early investment by internet leaders Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. and Tencent Holdings Ltd. Zhipu is now transitioning from building customized AI solutions for business clients in China to offering its AI to global users. The company sells subscriptionsBloomberg Terminal to its GLM Coding Plan, similar to Anthropic's Claude Code, which is unavailable in China. In an internal memo after Zhipu's initial public offering, co-founder and chief AI scientist Tang Jie touted the imminent release of GLM-5, saying the company must return to its roots in fundamental research. "DeepSeek was a wake-up call," Tang wrote.

Chinese AI startup Zhipu releases new flagship model GLM-5

BEIJING, Feb 11 (Reuters) - China's Zhipu AI (2513.HK), opens new tab released its latest artificial intelligence model on Wednesday, joining a wave of domestic rivals unveiling more sophisticated versions of the technology ahead of the Lunar New Year festival as competition heats up in the sector. The open-source GLM-5 model features enhanced coding capabilities and the ability to perform long-running agent tasks, approaching rival Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.5 in coding benchmark tests and surpassing Google's Gemini 3 Pro on some benchmarks, the company said in a press release. The latest model was developed using domestically manufactured chips for inference, including Huawei's flagship Ascend chip and products from leading industry players such as Moore Threads, Cambricon and Kunlunxin, according to the statement. Beijing is keen to showcase progress in domestic chip self-sufficiency efforts through advances in frontier AI models, encouraging domestic firms to rely on less advanced Chinese chips for training and inference as the U.S. tightens export curbs on high-end semiconductors. Chinese tech companies have been releasing a flurry of new models to capitalize on the country's AI boom and play catch-up with their U.S. rivals. Domestic competitor MiniMax released its latest M2.5 open-source model on its overseas agent website on Wednesday evening. Last week, ByteDance released Seedance 2.0, a video generation model that drew widespread attention on social media for its ability to create sophisticated videos. That followed rival Kuaishou's launch of its Kling 3.0 video generation model days earlier. Zhipu is considered one of China's "AI tigers" - a group of promising AI startups in the country vying with the United States to lead the development of this frontier technology. Zhipu went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last month, alongside rival MiniMax, another AI tiger. Both stocks have rallied strongly as investors bet on the companies benefiting from China's AI boom. The GLM-5 release follows a series of updates, including version 4.7 last month and version 4.6 in September. The latest model is also optimised for working with AI agents such as OpenClaw, the company said. The company has positioned its models as having strong coding and agentic capabilities that can perform multi-step tasks. Zhipu, which faces U.S. sanctions, derives most of its revenue from the domestic Chinese market but has overseas ambitions. Chief Executive Zhang Peng told Reuters in a September interview that overseas revenue was beginning to gain traction, though the company has yet to directly compete with U.S. models in consumer subscriptions. Reporting by Liam Mo, Brenda Goh and Laurie Chen; Editing by Anil D'Silva Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

Chinese AI startup Zhipu releases new flagship model GLM-5

Zhipu is considered one of China's "AI tigers" - a group of promising AI startups in the country vying with the United States to lead the development of this frontier technology. Zhipu went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last month, alongside rival MiniMax, another AI tiger. China's Zhipu AI released its latest artificial intelligence model on Wednesday, joining a wave of domestic rivals unveiling more sophisticated versions of the technology ahead of the Lunar New Year festival as competition heats up in the sector. The open-source GLM-5 model features enhanced coding capabilities and ⁠long-running ⁠agent tasks, approaching rival Anthropic's Claude Opus in coding benchmark tests, according to Chinese media reports. Chinese tech companies have been releasing a flurry of new models to capitalize on the country's AI boom and play catch-up with their U.S. rivals. Last week, ByteDance released Seedance 2.0, a video generation model that drew widespread attention on ⁠social media for its ability to create sophisticated videos. That followed rival Kuaishou's launch of its Kling 3.0 video generation ⁠model days earlier. Zhipu is considered one of China's "AI tigers" - a group of promising AI startups in the country vying with the United States to lead the development of this frontier technology. Zhipu went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange last month, alongside rival MiniMax, another AI tiger. Both stocks have rallied strongly as investors bet on the companies benefiting from China's AI boom. The GLM-5 release follows a series of updates, including version 4.7 last month and version 4.6 in September. The company ⁠has positioned its models as having strong coding and agentic capabilities that can perform multi-step tasks. Zhipu derives most of its revenue from the domestic Chinese market but has overseas ambitions. Chief Executive Zhang Peng told Reuters in a September interview that overseas revenue was beginning to gain traction, though the company has yet to directly compete with U.S. models in consumer subscriptions.