Hong Kong-listed Zhipu AI, which trades as Knowledge Atlas Technology, surged nearly 30% to close at 405 Hong Kong dollars ($51.8), according to LSEG data, News.Az reports, citing CNBC.
The jump followed the release of its new open-source large-language model, GLM-5, designed with enhanced coding capabilities and support for long-running AI agent tasks.
Zhipu said GLM-5 approaches the performance of Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.5 in coding benchmarks and outperforms Google’s Gemini 3 Pro in some tests, though those claims could not be independently verified.
Shares of MiniMax climbed 13.7% in Hong Kong to 70.5 Hong Kong dollars after the company launched its updated M2.5 open-source model on Wednesday via its overseas website. The firm describes its M2 series as optimized for advanced coding and agent-driven workflows.
The wave of announcements boosted broader investor sentiment in the AI sector. Shanghai-listed UCloud Tech, which provides computing support for Zhipu, jumped 20%, hitting the daily trading limit.
Meanwhile, SenseTime — which has shifted its focus from facial recognition technology to AI software platforms — saw its Hong Kong-listed shares rise 6.8%.
AI firm DeepSeek, which gained global attention last year, upgraded its flagship model this week, adding support for a larger context window and more up-to-date knowledge, according to the South China Morning Post.
Financial technology giant Ant Group also introduced its open-source AI model, Ming-Flash-Omni 2.0. The company described it as a unified multimodal system capable of generating speech, music, sound effects and visuals.
Earlier in the week, ByteDance launched Seedance 2.0, the latest version of its AI video generation app, fueling gains in Chinese AI app stocks. The company is also reportedly collaborating with Samsung on developing in-house semiconductor chips.
The flurry of product launches, combined with official backing for AI expansion, has reinforced investor optimism about China’s fast-growing artificial intelligence sector.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday stressed on a comprehensive push for “scaled and commercialized application of AI,” calling for better coordination of power and computing resources to advance the technology.
Li also emphasized on Beijing’s plans for improving the environment for AI talent and companies.
The rally in pure-play AI startups comes amid a broader slump in Chinese tech giants that also have AI divisions. Shares of Tencent and Alibaba fell 2.6% and 2.1%, respectively. The Hong Kong Hang Seng Tech index dropped 1.7%.
The wave of releases comes amid intensifying competition in AI as Chinese developers race to match U.S. rivals.
