China AI Models

Research evidence excerpt

China AI Models

ent shares shares shares

alleviating near-term funding concerns. We view such developments Placement price HKD 1,588 HKD 268

positively, as foundation model companies remain highly capital intensive, Discount to prior

requiring continued compute infrastructure investments to support close 12.99% 9.90%

rapidly growing usage and commercialisation efforts. With industry still Placement ~HKD 31.4bn ~HKD 9.5bn

at a nascent stage and accelerated adoption, stronger balance sheets proceeds (~USD 4.0bn) (~USD 1.2bn)

should ensure greater flexibility to scale products, expand ecosystem HKD 6.5bn

partnerships and sustain model innovation. + Convertible bond — (~USD 0.8bn)

• Zhipu remains China's coding SOTA play - and is working. Since Total new capital HK$ 31.4bn HK$ 16.0bn

its successful debut of GLM 5-2, Zhipu's robust ARR momentum has (~USD 4.0bn) (~USD 2.1bn)

sustained and crossed US$1bn in July, ahead of its full-year target. Source: Company data, Bloomberg, July 2026

We believe the model flywheel continues to strengthen, as better

model drives broader adoption, richer real-world data, and faster Figure 3 - ARR trends of Zhipu and MiniMax

iteration cycles. We expect Zhipu's ARR to reach US$2bn/4.5bn by

end-2026E/2027E. Zhipu AI founder Dr. Tang's July 11 "Touch-High Plan" US$bn

highlighted its strategic focus on long-horizon reasoning, autonomous

agents, self-training architectures, and AI safety governance. 4

• Minimax - asymmetric upside present. Despite a sharp share-price 32

correction from March highs, we recognise Minimax as a high-quality

model provider; its ARR surged from US$100m in Dec-25 to US$400m

in Apr-26, and it remains on track to achieve US$1bn by year-end, still 0

representing 10x growth in 12 months. We believe MiniMax remains