By Liam Mo and Laurie Chen

(Reuters) - One of the leading players in China's crowded artificial ‌intelligence sector, Zhipu AI, reported revenue growth of 131.9% ‌for 2025 on Tuesday, in its first results update since raising HK$4.35 billion ($554.9 ​million) in a January listing.

The spinoff from Tsinghua University has drawn attention in Silicon Valley with its latest GLM-5 model, said to match U.S. rivals on several performance metrics.

Revenue from its core ‌business of on-premise deployment, ⁠in which Zhipu sells models for installation on clients' local servers, rose more than 100% to 533.9 ⁠million yuan ($77.3 million) in 2025.

Cloud-based revenue from API services sold to enterprises and individuals climbed to 190.4 million yuan.

Zhipu posted a ​net loss ​of 4.72 billion yuan for ​2025, compared with a loss ‌of 2.96 billion in 2024. Its net adjusted loss for the year was 3.18 billion yuan.

The company has said it expects to reach profitability through revenue growth and improved operating efficiency, without giving a timeframe.

The results come amid growing competition in China's ‌AI sector, as companies race to ​release updated models and step up ​marketing.

Zhipu, also known as ​Knowledge Atlas Technology, competes with startups such as ‌MiniMax, Moonshot AI and DeepSeek, ​as well as ​internet giants ByteDance and Alibaba.

Rival MiniMax posted a net loss of $1.87 billion for 2025.

Zhipu has been expanding abroad, particularly ​in Southeast Asia, but ‌China remains its primary market.

($1=6.9074 Chinese yuan renminbi)

($1=7.8393 Hong ​Kong dollars)

(Reporting by Liam Mo, Che Pan and Laurie ​Chen; Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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