Tech news in 3 minutes

Zhipu surges 33% as Wall Street raises bets on China AI after Anthropic curbs

6 h ago

Shares of Chinese AI developer Zhipu surged Monday as Wall Street banks raised bets on its global AI demand capture, while the U.S. tightens curbs on foreign access to advanced models. Knowledge Atlas Technology, Zhipu’s Hong Kong-listed entity, rose as much as 48% before paring to 33% higher at HK$1,461. JPMorgan maintained an overweight rating, raising its price target to HK$1,400 from HK$950, citing model visibility and pricing power, while downgrading rival MiniMax. MiniMax shares rose 7.4%. Bank of America initiated coverage with “buy” ratings on both, setting targets of HK$1,250 for Zhipu and HK$500 for MiniMax. The moves followed the Trump administration’s Friday order for Anthropic to suspend access to its most advanced AI models (Fable 5 and Mythos 5) for foreign nationals, including non-citizen employees, over national security concerns. On the same day, Zhipu announced GLM-5.2, its latest open-source large model, to be released with no usage restrictions. The company framed it as a rejoinder: “Cutting-edge intelligence should not belong to only a few.” Preliminary feedback indicated GLM-5.2 performs comparably to Claude Opus 4.7 in coding and long-horizon tasks, per Macquarie’s Ellie Jiang, who maintained “outperform” with a target of HK$1,221.4. U.S. developers face pressure to restrict access, while Chinese players lean into open distribution, drawing demand from cost-sensitive enterprise users. Chinese models are gaining traction as “cheap-and-capable performers” as U.S. prices rise, according to BofA. Zhipu raised cloud API prices by 8–17% in April, its second hike this year, to respond to demand and investor profit pressures. The Anthropic curbs revived talent race debates: Z-Ben Advisors noted ~40% of U.S.-based AI engineers were born in China, and the directive bars them from systems they helped build, warning of “brain flight” to Chinese firms like DeepSeek. Zhipu’s shares have surged over tenfold since its January IPO, buoyed by optimism. MiniMax, also listed earlier, lags. Zhipu’s market cap is HK$489 billion, nearly four times MiniMax’s HK$124.2 billion. Both plan listings on Shanghai’s STAR Market. BofA called Zhipu’s premium justified by faster ARR growth, talent density, and enterprise exposure, while MiniMax is a potential catch-up trade.