Z.ai

Overview

Z.ai (formerly Zhipu AI) is a Chinese AI company and one of the “AI Tiger” companies, ranking as the third largest LLM market player in China’s AI industry according to the International Data Corporation. The company specializes in developing open-source large language models and AI infrastructure, with a focus on coding, reasoning, and multimodal capabilities.

History & Founding

Founded in 2019 by Li Juanzi and Tang Jie from Tsinghua University, initially pursuing AGI through graphic networks rather than LLMs. Created AMiner (similar to Google Scholar) connecting research papers into a database. Spun out as independent company and rebranded internationally as Z.ai in July 2025 with the GLM-4.5 release.

Funding & Ecosystem

• 2023: Raised 2.5 billion yuan (~$350M USD) with backing from Alibaba Group, Tencent, Ant Group, Meituan, Xiaomi, and HongShan
• May 2024: $400MUSDfinancingroundledbyProsperity7Ventures(SaudiArabianfirm),valuation$3B USD
• January 2025: Added to U.S. Commerce Department Entity List due to national security concerns

GLM Model Series

GLM-4.5 Series (July 2025)

• GLM-4.5: 355B total / 32B active parameters
• GLM-4.5-Air: 106B total / 12B active parameters
• Launched alongside international Z.ai rebrand
• Topped several popular benchmarks

GLM-4.6 Series (September 2025)

• glm-4.6: Enhanced coding and 200k context window, released September 30, 2025
• Built using China’s domestic chips (Cambricon)
• GLM-4.6V: Multimodal vision model with native tool-calling
  • GLM-4.6V (106B): Foundation model for cloud/clusters
  • GLM-4.6V-Flash (9B): Lightweight for local deployment

GLM-4.7 (December 2025)

• glm-4.7: Latest flagship released December 22, 2025
• Advanced thinking capabilities (Interleaved, Preserved, Turn-level)
• MoE architecture optimized for coding workflows
• #1 among open-source models on Code Arena
• Strong integration with Claude Code, Kilo Code, Cline, Roo Code

Other Products

• QingYan: Conversational AI platform
• CodeGeeX: Code generation tool
• CogVLM: Vision-language model
• CogView: Text-to-image generation
• Ying: Text-to-video model (6-second clips, launched July 2024)
• MaaS Platform: Model-as-a-Service for developers and enterprises
• AMiner: Research database (acquired from founder Tang Jie)

International Presence

Offices in Middle East, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Malaysia. Joint “innovation center” projects across Southeast Asia.

Related

• Tsinghua University - Origin institution
• Alibaba Group, Tencent - Major investors