In the span of time it took for Washington to restrict, then hit undo on limitations to Anthropic PBC¡¯s top models, Silicon Valley woke up to Zhipu.
Last year, when I spoke to Zhang Peng, the chief executive officer of the Beijing-based startup known abroad as Z.ai, it was still a little-known lab. What struck me was his focus on achieving artificial general intelligence and his unapologetic defense of open-source AI at a time when many were dismissing it as an admirable concept without a sustainable business model. The jury is still out on whether it is. But one thing has become clear: Open models from China now pose one of the biggest existential threats to the U.S. AI establishment.
The release of GLM 5.2, Zhipu¡¯s most advanced model, coincided with Washington¡¯s seemingly ad hoc regulatory intervention around Anthropic¡¯s top Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models. The timing couldn¡¯t have been better.
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