Zhipu AI’s revenue surges fivefold in six months: APIs serve as its absolute main revenue source, though the firm still posts a net loss of nearly 2 billion yuan.

Beating AI Express: Zhipu AI has released its first semi-annual report since listing. First-half revenue reached 954 million yuan, up 399.7% year-on-year, nearly five times the level of the same period last year. Growth was mainly driven by its open platform and API business: revenue in this segment surged from 29.1 million yuan to 825 million yuan, a year-on-year jump of 2735.7%, accounting for 86.5% of total revenue. Zhipu’s revenue structure has almost reversed: the open platform and API business (charged per call) rose from 26.3% of total revenue in the whole of last year to 86.5% this period, while localized deployment dropped from 73.7% to 13.5%. The gross profit margin of its API business also improved from -0.4% in the same period last year to 24.6%, with Zhipu citing expanded call volume, price adjustments, and lower inference costs as key reasons. However, R&D investment and losses remain high: first-half R&D expenditure hit 2.131 billion yuan, up 33.6% year-on-year; adjusted net loss stood at 1.964 billion yuan, expanding 12.1% from 1.752 billion yuan in the same period last year. Meanwhile, overall gross margin fell from 50.0% to 26.4%, mainly due to the rapid shift in revenue toward cloud-based business that is still in its growth phase.