ByteDance, Zhipu Jolt China’s AI Race Ahead of New Year

ByteDance Ltd. and Zhipu have joined a flurry of Chinese companies releasing major AI model upgrades, raising the stakes in an intensifying battle for tech dominance and users ahead of the Lunar New Year.

Zhipu on Thursday released the latest iteration of its large language model, GLM-5, surpassing a rival offering from Moonshot AI unveiled just weeks ago to claim the top spot among open-source models on benchmarking site Artificial Analysis. The company hiked the price of its GLM Coding Plan — similar to Anthropic PBC’s Claude Code, which is unavailable in China — by 30% this week to capitalize on surging demand. Its shares rose as much as 34% in Hong Kong on Thursday.