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

Shares of Chinese AI model developer Zhipu surged on Monday as Wall Street banks raised bets on the company’s ability to capture global AI demand, while Washington tightens curbs on foreign access to its most powerful models.

Knowledge Atlas Technology, the Hong Kong-listed entity behind Zhipu, soared as much as 48% on Monday before paring gains. It was last traded 33% higher at around 1,461 Hong Kong dollars ($186), according to LSEG data.

The share moves came as JPMorgan reportedly maintained its overweight rating on the company and raised the target price to HK$1,400 from HK$950, citing the firm’s model visibility and what the bank sees as pricing power in a fiercely contested market. It simultaneously downgraded its domestic rival MiniMax, per a Bloomberg report.

MiniMax shares rose 7.4% on Monday.

Separately, Bank of America analysts on Monday initiated coverage with “buy” ratings on the pair, setting targets of 1,250 Hong Kong dollars for Zhipu and 500 Hong Kong dollars for MiniMax.

The assessment came after the Trump administration on Friday ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its most advanced AI models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, for any foreign national, including Anthropic’s own non-citizen employees, over national security concerns.

On the same day, Zhipu announced GLM-5.2, its latest and most capable open-source large model, would be released as open-source software this week with no usage restrictions.

Zhipu appeared to frame the release as a direct rejoinder to Washington’s intervention. “Cutting-edge intelligence should not belong to only a few, nor should it be withdrawn at any time,” the company said. “It should be open, available, extensible and built to serve every developer.”

Preliminary community feedback indicated GLM-5.2 performs comparably to Claude Opus 4.7 in coding and long-horizon agentic tasks, according to Ellie Jiang, head of Asia internet and media research at Macquarie Capital.

The latest launch will likely strengthen Zhipu’s pricing power in subsequent subscription plans, further boosting revenue, Jiang added, maintaining an “outperform” rating with a target price at 1,221.4 Hong Kong dollars.

While U.S. developers face mounting pressure to restrict frontier access, Chinese players have leaned into open distribution, drawing demand particularly from cost-sensitive enterprise users.

China is positioned to capture a substantial share of the global AI market within the “value-for-money” segment, with Chinese models gaining traction as “cheap-and-capable performers” as U.S. pricing for frontier models rises, according to BofA analysts.

Zhipu raised cloud API prices by 8% to 17% alongside its GLM-5.1 launch in April, its second hike this year, responding to surging demand for…