Chinese tech startups are following in DeepSeek’s footsteps by releasing new artificial intelligence models that are smarter and cheaper, according to CNBC. One of the most notable is Z.ai, formerly known as Zhipu, which on Monday revealed its GLM-4.5 model. The company says that this model costs less to use than DeepSeek’s and works with agentic AI, which is a system that breaks large tasks into smaller steps for more accurate results. Z.ai is also making the model open-source so developers can freely download and use it.
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What’s interesting is that GLM-4.5 is roughly half the size of DeepSeek’s competing model and requires only eight Nvidia (NVDA) H20 chips to run. For context, these are the specialized chips made for China to comply with U.S. export controls. Z.ai CEO Zhang Peng told CNBC that the company already has enough computing power and does not need to buy more chips, although he declined to disclose the model’s training costs. Nevertheless, Z.ai stated that it will charge $0.11 per million input tokens and $0.28 per million output tokens, which is significantly cheaper than DeepSeek’s rates of $0.14 and $2.19, respectively.
It is worth noting that Z.ai’s release adds to a wave of new open-source AI models from China. Indeed, earlier this month, Alibaba-backed Moonshot (BABA) introduced its Kimi K2 model that it claimed was better at coding than OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude. Tencent (TCEHY) also released its HunyuanWorld-1.0 model for 3D game development, and Alibaba announced Qwen3-Coder for programming tasks. In addition, Z.ai has raised more than $1.5 billion from investors, which has led U.S. regulators to add the startup to their Entity List that limits American companies from working with it.
Which Tech Stock Is the Better Buy?
Turning to Wall Street, out of the three stocks mentioned above, analysts think that BABA stock has the most room to run. In fact, BABA’s average price target of $151.08 per share implies more than 23% upside potential. On the other hand, analysts expect the least from NVDA stock, as its average price target of $184.91 equates to a gain of 5.6%.
