China’s OpenAI challenger Zhipu AI gets Meituan funding

Zhipu AI, one of China’s most promising challengers to OpenAI, has received funding from the country’s food delivery giant Meituan, which has a market cap of around $100 billion at the time of writing.

An affiliate of Zhipu AI recently added a Meituan subsidiary as its shareholder, which now owns a 10% stake in the firm, local media reported citing business filing information. The startup hasn’t disclosed its exact funding to date, only saying it raised “hundreds of million yuan” ($1 = 7.23 yuan) from a Series B round last September. Its investors include Qiming Venture Partners, Legend Capital and Tsinghua Holdings.

A multitude of Chinese companies are working to develop large language models (LLMs) that could potentially challenge their Western equivalents. One such company, Zhipu AI, hails from the academic realm, having spun out of the country’s prestigious Tsinghua University. Founded in 2019, the startup is led by Tang Jie, a professor in the university’s Department of Computer Science and Technology.

 

 

 

 

 

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