Information about Zhipu’s AI service on the web, called Z.ai, located on a computer in Shanghai on January 7, 2026.
Raul Ariano | Bloomberg | Getty Images
China’s artificial intelligence stocks rose on Thursday as several companies unveiled upgraded models and policymakers renewed calls for widespread adoption of the technology.
Hong Kong-listed Zhipu AI — traded as Knowledge Atlas Technology — Soared 30% after the release of GLM-5, an open source large-scale language model with enhanced coding capabilities and long-running agent tasks.
The company says the model approaches Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 in coding benchmarks and beats Google’s Gemini 3 Pro in some tests. CNBC was unable to verify those claims.
mini max Hong Kong shares rose 11% after the company unveiled its latest M2.5 open source model with enhanced AI agent tools on an overseas website on Wednesday.
The company describes M2 as “a model built for Max coding and agent workflows.”
The rally comes as competition in the AI field intensifies, with Chinese developers releasing a flurry of new models and agents to compete with their American rivals.
DeepSeek, which took the world by storm last year, also upgraded its flagship AI model on Wednesday, adding support for larger context windows and more up-to-date knowledge, the South China Morning Post reported.
Ant Group also released its open source AI model Ming-Flash-Omni 2.0 on Wednesday. The “integrated multimodal model” can generate speech, music, sound effects, and visuals.
These releases also increased investor sentiment towards suppliers to AI companies. The Shanghai-listed shares of UCloud Tech, which provides computing support to Zhipu, soared 20%, hitting a daily high.
SenseTime, which has shifted its focus from developing facial recognition surveillance technology to providing an AI software platform, saw its shares rise 5% in Hong Kong.
The Shanghai Star AI Industry Index rose 1.7%, paring gains.
Shiura AI
Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday called for a comprehensive push for the adoption of AI “in a variety of scenarios to unleash the potential of the technology.”
The AI startup’s rise comes amid a broader downturn for Chinese tech giants that also have AI divisions. shares of tencent and alibaba They fell by 2.6% and 2.1%, respectively. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech Index fell 1.7%.
