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Exclusive | Zhipu AI sees tenfold surge in overseas users as Chinese AI gains traction
The Beijing start-up is leveraging its affordable ‘good enough’ open model to compete in the fast-growing AI coding market
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Vincent Chowin Beijing
Chinese artificial intelligence start-up Zhipu AI, marketed internationally as Z.ai, has seen the number of paid users overseas increase tenfold over the past two months, the head of its global operations said, in a sign of the growing appeal of Chinese AI services among global users.
The Beijing-based company now has around 100,000 monthly API – or application programming interface – users, as well as 3 million free chatbot users overseas, following the launch of its flagship GLM-4.6 model, Li Zixuan said in an interview on Friday.
“We want to grow in every market because growth overseas is exceeding growth domestically,” he said.
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Launched in late September, GLM-4.6 was billed as the world’s most powerful open model for coding and was quickly integrated into popular AI coding tools such as Anthropic-backed Claude Code.
The model was a “game-changer” for Zhipu’s global business, said Li.
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According to Kilo Code, another coding tool, GLM-4.6 saw the platform’s fastest adoption ever due to its low cost compared with US counterparts, as token usage for the “good enough” model increased 94 times in 12 days.
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