Zhipu has entered and exited the "Trillion Club" three times, with Tsinghua University and major industry players sharing the capital feast

In just five trading days, Zhipu, the leading AI company in the Hong Kong stock market, staged a thrilling "tug - of - war" over a market capitalization of HK$1 trillion: It soared several times to firmly stay above the HK$1 trillion mark, only to fall back below it, presenting the famous scene of "entering and exiting the trillion - HK - dollar club three times".

On June 22, Zhipu, known as "the world's first large - model stock", hit a peak of HK$2,980 per share during intraday trading, with its total market capitalization reaching HK$1.33 trillion at one point. It closed at HK$2,410 per share that day, with a closing total market capitalization of HK$1.07 trillion, becoming the first domestic large - model enterprise to enter the "trillion - HK - dollar club".

However, the HK$1 trillion market capitalization was not stable. Just one day later, the market capitalization shrank back to HK$967.5 billion. On June 24, it returned to HK$1 trillion during intraday trading but closed at HK$969.2 billion again. On June 25, it closed at HK$2,350 per share, with a closing market capitalization of HK$1.05 trillion, returning to the "trillion - HK - dollar club". On June 26, Zhipu closed at HK$2,046 per share, with a total market capitalization of HK$912.2 billion. On June 29, Zhipu fell again, closing at HK$1,961 per share, with a total market capitalization of HK$874.3 billion.

In just five days, Zhipu "entered and exited" the HK$1 trillion mark three times. But since its listing on January 8 this year at an issue price of HK$116.2 per share, Zhipu has seen a cumulative increase of nearly 20 times in half a year.

The direct trigger for this surge in the stock price was on June 17, when Zhipu officially launched and open - sourced its flagship model, GLM - 5.2, continuously fulfilling its technological expectations and giving the capital market the confidence to assign a high valuation.

It repeatedly knocks on the door of the trillion - HK - dollar club but struggles to stay. When the spotlight of the capital market shines brightly on this company, everyone is asking what makes Zhipu so special. What wealth - creating myths are hidden behind this trillion - HK - dollar market - capitalization frenzy?

Multiple factors resonate to drive up the stock price

Half a year ago, when Zhipu listed on the Hong Kong stock market, the market labeled it as the "Chinese version of OpenAI". This label was half an endorsement and half an implication that it was a follower of OpenAI and a domestic alternative. Now, the term "alternative" has faded away, and the narrative of competition has replaced the narrative of following.

The turning point was on June 17, when Zhipu released and open - sourced its new - generation flagship large model, GLM - 5.2. This model focuses on "long - term tasks", enabling AI to not only answer immediate questions but also work continuously for hours like a human and independently complete a large - scale project.

On the Code Arena, a front - end development evaluation system with millions of global users participating in blind tests, GLM - 5.2 currently ranks first among the globally available models. On the first day of its launch, GLM - 5.2 completed the inference adaptation with domestic computing power platforms such as Huawei Ascend, T-Head, Moore Threads, and Cambricon, building a complete domestic computing power ecosystem.

More importantly, in terms of pricing, GLM - 5.2 cancelled the low - price tier and charged at a high - end price across the board. The comprehensive API price has increased by about 10% compared to GLM - 5.1. By raising the price while the underlying computing power cost remains relatively stable, it has broken the pattern of low - price involution among domestic large models, proving to the market that cutting - edge general models have independent pricing power.

Just a few days before the release of GLM - 5.2, Anthropic's "supply cut" unexpectedly created a global demand gap. On June 9, Anthropic released its so - called "strongest - ever" models, Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5. On June 12, the US Department of Commerce, citing national security reasons, required Anthropic to restrict all foreign citizens from accessing its latest model, Fable 5, and Anthropic also suspended the overseas services of its two flagship models.

On June 13, Zhipu announced that GLM - 5.2 was about to be launched, with the caption: "At a time when some cutting - edge models suddenly become unavailable, we choose to believe in another path: Cutting - edge intelligence should not belong to only a few people, nor should it be taken back at any time by a few rules. It should be open, available, and buildable, and serve every developer."

Image source: Canva

Meanwhile, an online confrontation between Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, and Tang Jie, the founder of Zhipu, also helped GLM - 5.2 quickly gain popularity and further amplified the global influence of the model.

On June 18, a netizen asked on a social platform, "When is the Chinese large model expected to reach the level of Claude Fable? Zhipu's GLM - 5.2 has undoubtedly narrowed the gap." Musk replied that it might be in the first quarter of 2027. Immediately, Tang Jie directly responded to Musk, saying, "It won't take that long."

Currently, there are many players in the domestic large - model track, but there are few leading enterprises that have truly achieved technological open - source, commercialized implementation, and global competitiveness. As "the world's first large - model stock", Zhipu is a scarce domestic AI core asset that can be directly invested in. Meanwhile, the domestic AI industry policy continues to be favorable, with self - control and domestic substitution as the core themes.

On June 8, Zhipu and MiniMax were included in the Hang Seng Tech Index at the same time. Zhipu entered the Stock Connect of the Hong Kong stock market on the same day due to its common - stock structure. This is the first time that a large - model AI enterprise has entered the core technology benchmark of the Hong Kong stock market. Qualified mainland investors can directly trade Zhipu's stocks through the Stock Connect.

In addition, there is also new progress in Zhipu's story of dual listing on the A - share and Hong Kong stock markets. On June 17, Wu Qing, the chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, announced at the Lujiazui Forum that the scope of application of the fifth listing standard of the Science and Technology Innovation Board has been expanded to the field of large AI models. On the same day, the website of the China Securities Regulatory Commission showed that the status of Zhipu AI's IPO guidance on the Science and Technology Innovation Board has been changed to "guidance acceptance".

This surge in the stock price is the result of the resonance of multiple logics, including the technological discourse power of domestic large models, the global supply pattern, industrial policies, and the scarcity of funds.

Who is at the trillion - HK - dollar feast?

The breakthrough of the HK$1 trillion market capitalization is not only a victory for technology but also a capital feast. In Zhipu's growth history, wealth - creating myths have already been staged in multiple dimensions, involving founders, employees, investment institutions, and local state - owned assets.

Zhipu was founded in 2019. Almost all of its founding team members graduated from the Knowledge Engineering Laboratory (KEG) of the Department of Computer Science at Tsinghua University. They started with just 20,000 yuan to run codes, and now its market capitalization in the Hong Kong stock market has exceeded HK$1 trillion.

The prospectus shows that Tang Jie, the founder and chief scientist, holds 26.8353 million shares. Based on the closing price of HK$2,410 on June 22 and a total market capitalization of HK$1.07 trillion, his shares are worth nearly HK$65 billion; Liu Debing, the chairman, holds 925,200 shares; Li Juanzi, the co - founder, holds 3.3878 million shares; Xu Bin, the co - founder, holds 799,000 shares; and Zhang Peng, the CEO, holds 399,500 shares, corresponding to approximately HK$2.2 billion, HK$8.2 billion, HK$1.9 billion, and HK$960 million respectively.

Joining the founding team at the table are 451 employees with shareholdings. The prospectus shows that Zhipu has two employee shareholding platforms, "Huihui" and "Zhideng", which together hold approximately 14.96% of the company's shares. Huihui covers 426 people, holding approximately 9.21% of the shares. Based on the trillion - HK - dollar market capitalization, the average value per person is approximately HK$210 million. Zhideng has only 25 people, holding 5.75% of the shares, with an average value per person of approximately HK$2.3 billion. These employees are expected to achieve a net worth of tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of Hong Kong dollars through equity incentives.

The prospectus shows that since its establishment, Zhipu has completed eight rounds of financing, with a total financing scale of over 8.3 billion yuan, attracting more than 50 institutional investors, including industrial capital such as Meituan, Ant Group, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, and Kingsoft, as well as leading venture capital institutions such as Legend Capital, Sequoia Capital, Hillhouse Capital, and Qiming Venture Partners, and local state - owned assets from Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Tianjin, and Hangzhou.

Zhipu's early - stage investment institutions have received amazing returns. Zhongke Chuangxing invested approximately 40 million yuan in 2019 when Zhipu's post - investment valuation was only about 375 million yuan. After subsequent financing and equity dilution, Zhongke Chuangxing still retains nearly 1.47% of the shares. Based on the current market capitalization of approximately HK$1 trillion, the corresponding equity value is approximately HK$10 billion.

Internet giants have also reaped rich rewards. Meituan invested 300 million yuan in the B2 round, holding 17.2173 million shares of Zhipu, with a shareholding ratio of approximately 3.9%, corresponding to a market value of approximately HK$40 billion; Ant Group invested approximately 600 million yuan in total, holding approximately 3.66% of the shares, corresponding to approximately HK$39 billion.

Another behind - the - scenes winner is Tsinghua University. Huakong Technology Transfer Co., Ltd., affiliated with Tsinghua University, is one of the core initiators of Zhipu. It currently holds 15.5344 million shares of Zhipu, with a shareholding ratio of approximately 3.5%, corresponding to a market value of over HK$30 billion. In addition, JinYi Capital, funded by the Tsinghua University Education Foundation, subscribed for approximately HK$54 million worth of shares as a cornerstone investor. In total, the entities related to Tsinghua University hold shares in Zhipu with a corresponding market value of approximately HK$38 billion.

Hidden concerns and challenges behind the high valuation

Behind Zhipu's high valuation, there are also hidden concerns and challenges.

The 2025 financial report shows that Zhipu had a loss of 4.718 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 59.5%; the adjusted net loss was 3.182 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 29.1%. According to Wind data, from 2022 to 2024, Zhipu had losses of 143 million yuan, 788 million yuan, and 2.956 billion yuan respectively. Including the 2025 loss, the total loss in four years is approximately 8.5 billion yuan.

In the past, large - model companies were regarded as "money - guzzlers" that burned money for technology. Now, Zhipu's growth driver is rapidly shifting from project - based local deployment to cloud - based API and agent business with greater scalability potential. The financial report shows that in 2025, the revenue share of Zhipu's open platform and API increased from 15.5% to 26.3%; the revenue share of enterprise - level agents increased from 15.2% to 22.9%; while the revenue share of enterprise - level general large models decreased from 68.7% to 50.4%.

According to a report by Cailian Press, at Zhipu's 2025 earnings briefing, Zhang Peng, the CEO of Zhipu, introduced that in the first quarter of 2026, the pricing of Zhipu's API calls increased by 83%. Even so, the market still showed a situation of supply falling short of demand, with the call volume increasing by 400%.

While investors are imagining high - growth scenarios, an unavoidable reality is that computing power is the key variable that determines the ceiling of this story. Imagine a super - car with an extremely powerful engine but an unstable fuel supply; it is destined not to go far. And Zhipu apologized for the computing - power gap not long ago.

On February 12, Zhipu released its flagship model, GLM - 5. Due to the significant improvement in performance, user enthusiasm far exceeded expectations, and the surging traffic directly put Zhipu's computing power to a severe test. To cope with the higher computing - power consumption of GLM - 5, the company designed a hierarchical consumption strategy with a three - fold increase during peak hours and a two - fold increase during off - peak hours. However, the server expansion could not keep up, and many paying users were unable to use the core model normally.

On February 21, Zhipu quickly apologized for the relevant mistakes. Despite offering "painful" compensation, on the first trading day after the apology, Zhipu's stock price plummeted by 23%, evaporating more than HK$70 billion in half a day.

In addition, Zhipu will see the lifting of the lock - up period for the shares of its cornerstone investors in July 2026, with a total of 25.6816 million shares, accounting for 5.76% of the total share capital. According to a report by 36Kr, the shareholders mainly include cornerstone investors such as JSC, Taikang Life Insurance, GF Fund, and JinYi Capital.

Bai Wenxi, the deputy chairman of the China Enterprise Capital Alliance, believes that these investors have accumulated high floating profits and have a strong expectation to cash out. If Zhipu's API growth rate slows down, its gross profit margin does not improve significantly, and its losses continue to expand at that time, and investor confidence is not firm, the sudden increase in liquidity supply after the lock - up period expires will pose a risk of significant stock - price fluctuations. In the case of a relatively small tradable share capital, the impact of the lock - up expiration will be magnified.

Bai Wenxi said that the continuous losses combined with the pressure of large - scale selling after the lock - up expiration will significantly increase the subsequent financing cost. The valuation of equity financing may be under pressure, and the terms of debt financing will also become more stringent. The company needs to communicate with cornerstone investors in advance to lock in commitments or consider a phased lock - up expiration arrangement to smooth the impact.