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News: Zhipu is evaluating its self-developed custom AI chip
According to a report by The Information, multiple sources revealed that Zhipu, a leading Chinese AI company, is considering designing its own AI chip. It is understood that with the rapidly increasing demand for its GLM series of large-scale models, coupled with increasing constraints on computing resources, Zhipu has recently made initial contact with some domestic chip design companies to explore the possibility of jointly developing a customized AI processor. The report points out that for large-scale AI model developers, developing their own chips aims to achieve hardware and software synergy optimization, improve computing efficiency, and reduce dependence on external GPU suppliers. Besides Zhipu, another domestic large-scale model company, DeepSeek, has also recently been reported to be simultaneously advancing its self-developed chip project focused on inference scenarios. Globally, top AI developers such as OpenAI (which has announced its self-developed chip Jalapeño) and Anthropic are actively developing customized chips, and the AI industry is accelerating towards a dual-track development stage of "model + chip" hardware and software integration.
Zhipu plans to develop its own AI chip and has already contacted chip companies to accelerate efforts to address its computing power shortcomings.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Zhipu is evaluating the possibility of designing its own AI chip to address the rapidly growing demand for its GLM series of open-source large models and the shortage of computing resources caused by US export restrictions. Odaily has recently made preliminary contact with some Chinese chip design companies to explore cooperation in developing a customized AI processor optimized for its model operation scenarios. Zhipu is one of China's leading AI large-scale model companies, with its GLM series models attracting attention due to its open-source strategy and performance. As the application scale of large-scale models expands, high-performance computing resources have become a key bottleneck for AI companies. Developing its own chips is seen as a way to reduce dependence on external GPUs and improve computing efficiency. Currently, Zhipu AI has not yet made a final decision on whether to proceed with the chip project; the relevant plans are still in the early evaluation stage. (The Information)
DeepSeek's Secret Self-Developed Inference Chip
According to Beating, Reuters, citing sources familiar with the matter, reports that DeepSeek, a major Chinese model-making company, is developing its own AI inference chip. This research began about a year ago and is primarily for model inference rather than training. In recent months, the company has been privately recruiting chip design engineers. Currently, DeepSeek's model operation and training heavily rely on chips from Nvidia and Huawei. If successful, developing its own inference chip would reduce reliance on external suppliers and provide more cost-effective hardware control. However, the project is still in its early stages and faces manufacturing and memory access restrictions due to US export controls.
Analysis: To reduce costs, overseas developers are turning to Chinese AI models such as DeepSeek.
According to Odaily Odaily, as the cost of using AI continues to rise, more and more overseas startups and developers are adopting Chinese AI models such as DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Moonshot AI to reduce inference costs. Data shows that DeepSeek's share of AI traffic on the cloud platform Vercel has increased from less than 1% in May of this year to 17%. OpenRouter, an AI model aggregation platform, stated that DeepSeek's usage doubled in the first half of 2026, becoming the platform's most popular model. It also pointed out that the token usage share of Chinese open-source models, including those from Xiaomi, MiniMax, and Tencent, continues to rise, while the share of Google and OpenAI has declined. (Bloomberg)
Zhipu surged over 14% intraday after announcing plans to develop its own chips.
According to BlockBeats, on July 8th, Bitget data showed that Hong Kong-listed Zhipu Technology surged over 14% intraday, following its earlier disclosure that it was considering developing its own chips. Furthermore, nearly 70% of Zhipu's investors indicated they would hold the stock long-term.
Zhipu surged over 10% after reports indicated it was considering developing its own AI chips.
PANews reported on July 8 that, according to Jinshi News, Zhipu (02513.HK) rose by more than 10%, with a turnover of over HK$6 billion. The report stated that Zhipu is considering developing its own AI chip to cope with the rapid growth in demand for GLM models.