Zhipu chairman nets $22.4 billion fortune as AI stock surges 1,000%

Zhipu's shares surged nearly 1,000% this year, turning Chairman Liu Debing into a $22.4 billion fortune and reshaping China's AI pecking order.

Chinese AI model developer Knowledge Atlas Technology, better known as Zhipu, had a lukewarm market debut when it listed in Hong Kong in January. Since then, its shares have soared nearly 1,000%, propelling Liu to the 15th richest person in China with a $22.4 billion fortune, according to Forbes' Real-Time Billionaires List. Chief scientist Tang Jie, a Tsinghua University computer science professor, holds a stake valued at $5 billion.

"Zhipu made very strong progress in LLM performance in recent months, securing a first-tier position in the global race," Charlie Chai, a Shanghai-based analyst at 86Research, said. "Its capabilities in reasoning and coding are particularly strong, fairly close to global leaders such as Claude."

The Beijing-based company launched GLM-5 in February, a model it says performs comparably to Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.5, followed by GLM-5.1 in April. Macquarie Capital said the updated model enables AI agents to build a sophisticated website within 30 seconds, a critical capability as digital assistants require faster response times across multiple inference steps. Zhipu's revenues surged 132% year-on-year to 724.3 million yuan in 2024, though losses widened almost 60% to 4.7 billion yuan as it invested heavily in research and development. The company raised model prices by 30% in February and another 8% in April.

The blistering rally reflects investor conviction that Zhipu has overcome U.S. blacklisting on national security grounds last year and fierce competition from domestic rivals including MiniMax Group, Kimi and Alibaba Group Holding. The company is now seeking to raise at least 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion) by issuing up to 38.8 million new shares on Shanghai's Sci-Tech Innovation Board, according to a stock exchange filing.

Can the Rally Hold?

Zhipu's shares trade at HK$1,455, well above 86Research's price target of HK$1,300. Chai said his target already factors in growth through 2030 and that the company may not generate a profit over the next three years due to heavy research investments. Kenny Ng, a Hong Kong-based securities strategist at Everbright Securities International, advises a wait-and-see approach given the dramatic rally.

"Model companies represent a very new business model and cost structure, which we have difficulty finding comparable reference points from the old economy," Chai said.

Sales are projected to grow at least 100% over the next three years as Zhipu's models gain popularity, Ng said. But the stock, along with peer MiniMax Group, frequently swings more than 10% in either direction during a single session as investors scout for industry leaders and rapidly reallocate capital.

For investors, the question is whether Zhipu's technology trajectory can justify its valuation. The company trades at a significant premium to peers, and with losses still widening, the path to profitability remains uncertain. If GLM-5.1's performance holds up against global benchmarks, Zhipu could capture a larger share of China's fast-growing AI inference market — but the stock's current price already prices in years of success.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.