The Zhipu AI logo will be displayed on the smartphone screen.
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Shares of Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC, known as Zhipu, rose after a $558 million initial public offering in its Hong Kong debut, making it the first of China’s AI tigers.
The stock is up about 10% from the offer price 116.20 Hong Kong dollars ($15) with about 37.4 million shares offered by the Beijing-based startup.
The IPO valued Zhipu at around HK$4.3 billion, making it one of the largest AI flotations in recent years.
Founded in 2019 by researchers from a leading Chinese university, Zhipu is the country’s first major language company to go public through an IPO. The listing marks another milestone for China’s broader artificial intelligence sector, following a wave of recent listings by AI chipmakers.
The firm, heavily backed by Beijing, is also considered one of China’s “AI tigers” — startups building large language models to compete with companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
Other notable firms in the group include Deepseek, which shook the market early last year by launching one of its LLM models.
Although not as well-known globally as Deepseek, Chipu gained attention last year during US AI juggernaut OpenAI. highlighted China’s remarkable progress as a “front-line” contender in the AI leadership race.
Firm reported It has offices in the UK, Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East. It also manages joint “innovation hubs” projects in Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and Vietnam.
Zhipu’s progress came despite being deployed is on The US Commerce Department’s list of targets in January of last year came after US officials said they were working with the Chinese military. The firm’s ability to train AI models has also been limited by US restrictions on access to advanced semiconductor technology and expertise.
According to Zhipu prospectusit plans to use 70% of its IPO proceeds to research and develop its large general-purpose AI models. The firm reported revenue of 312.4 million yuan in 2024.
Rival Chinese AI startup MiniMax is expected to launch its offering on Friday after filing confidentially last year.