BEIJING — Chinese artificial intelligence companies are sharply increasing outside fundraising amid a boom in AI infrastructure spending. The trend extends beyond startups such as Zhipu and MiniMax to cash-rich giants including Alibaba, Tencent and ByteDance.
Chinese AI company Zhipu recently completed a funding round of about $5 billion, Chinese business outlet 21st Century Business Herald reported on the 13th. The round came just two months after the company secured about $4 billion (roughly 5.3 trillion won) through a share sale in July. The proceeds will go toward developing its next-generation AI model, GLM, building its own training framework and expanding computing infrastructure.
Zhipu released GLM-5, 5.1, 5.2 and 5.3 in succession between February and August this year, upgrading its flagship model roughly every two months. Commercialization is also accelerating alongside technical development. First-half revenue reached 954 million yuan, a 399.7% jump from a year earlier, while revenue from application programming interface, or API, calls used mainly by corporate clients rose more than 27-fold to account for 86.5% of total revenue.
Chinese companies are lining up to secure funds to lock in the computing resources and talent needed to lead the AI market. MiniMax raised an additional $2 billion in July. After listing in Hong Kong earlier this year, the company is preparing to list on the STAR Market, the Shanghai Stock Exchange's board for technology companies, according to Global Times and other outlets. DeepSeek is also pursuing a listing, and Moonshot AI is reportedly weighing listings in Hong Kong and on the STAR Market.
Cash-Rich Big Tech Joins In: ByteDance Borrows 40 Trillion Won
China's well-funded big tech firms are no exception. Alibaba raised 80 billion Hong Kong dollars on the Hong Kong exchange last month and will channel the entire amount into AI infrastructure and related areas. Tencent issued $4.7 billion (about 6.5 trillion won) in dollar- and yuan-denominated bonds in June, and ByteDance recently secured a $29.6 billion (about 40 trillion won) syndicated loan from roughly 30 banks at home and abroad. ByteDance's loan is about three times what it raised in 2024.
These companies are not facing an immediate cash crunch. As of the end of June, Alibaba held 474.5 billion yuan in cash and liquid investments, while Tencent's total cash stood at 511.2 billion yuan. They are still turning to outside funding because AI investment has become capital-intensive on a scale hard to compare with their existing internet businesses.
Competition in large models is expanding rapidly from model research and development into data centers, servers, AI chips and power infrastructure. The AI computing center ByteDance is building in Datong, in the northwestern province of Shanxi, alone carries an investment of 4.5 billion yuan.
A similar pattern is emerging in the United States. Major U.S. technology firms including Amazon, Google parent Alphabet, Meta and Oracle have also turned to large bond issues and fundraising this year.
The 21st Century Business Herald said the domestic AI model industry remains in a phase of expanding investment and cannot cover enormous computing and R&D costs with commercial revenue alone, adding that leading firms continue to replenish their war chests through capital markets.
