Chinese artificial intelligence company Zhipu AI has started preparations for an initial public offering (IPO). The company filed with the Beijing Securities Regulatory Bureau on April 14, and has appointed China International Capital Corporation (CICC) as its advisor.

Founded in 2019 as a spinoff from Tsinghua University’s Knowledge Engineering Lab, Zhipu AI focuses on cognitive AI models. Its products include ChatGLM, a bilingual chatbot, and CogView, a text-to-image generator. The company has secured investments from firms such as Tencent, Alibaba, Qiming Venture Partners, and Legend Capital.

On the same day as its IPO filing, Zhipu open-sourced its latest AI models, known as the GLM-4-32B-0414 series, under the MIT License. These models feature 32 billion parameters and include foundational, inference, and reasoning capabilities. One model, the GLM-Z1-Air-0414, is recognized for its cost efficiency, operating at one-thirtieth the cost of DeepSeek-R1.

Zhipu plans to complete IPO preparations by October 2025, with a formal application anticipated later this year. This move makes Zhipu the first among China’s prominent AI startups to pursue a public listing.

🔗 Source: Securities Times

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Chinese tech IPOs follow historical pattern of strategic timing

Zhipu AI’s IPO preparation continues a tradition of Chinese tech companies using public offerings as strategic milestones rather than mere fundraising events.

The timing mirrors Alibaba’s landmark 2014 IPO that raised $20 billion when the company was already valued at approximately $168 billion, showing how Chinese tech giants often wait until they’ve established market dominance before going public 1.

Similar to how Megvii planned its Hong Kong IPO after securing significant backing from Ant Financial, Zhipu is pursuing its public offering after establishing strong investor relationships with tech giants Tencent and Alibaba 2.

The pattern of Chinese tech IPOs often involves companies demonstrating technological differentiation before listing. Zhipu’s release of its cost-efficient GLM models (reportedly one-thirtieth the cost of competitors) reflects how previous Chinese tech companies positioned themselves before their IPOs.

Chinese tech companies raised a record $8.9 billion through U.S. IPOs in 2018 alone, indicating that Zhipu’s domestic listing represents a shift in where Chinese tech companies are choosing to go public 3.

2️⃣ Open-source releases increasingly accompany major AI business milestones

Zhipu’s decision to open-source its GLM-4-32B-0414 models under the MIT License simultaneously with its IPO announcement reflects a strategic trend among AI companies to demonstrate technological prowess and community commitment before major business events.

This pattern aligns with broader industry shifts, as 51% of organizations using open-source AI tools report positive ROI, making open-source credentials increasingly valuable for companies seeking investment 4.

The Stanford AI Index shows that while U.S. private AI investment reached $109.1 billion in 2024 (compared to China’s $9.3 billion), Chinese companies are increasingly closing the performance gap in AI capabilities—making open-source demonstrations crucial for validating technological claims 5.

Recent Zhipu developments