Tang Jie, founder of http://Z.ai, one of China’s most valuable listed AI companies, has published an open letter after the company’s valuation crossed HK$1T.
A year ago, he said, http://Z.ai had two paths: build an OpenAI-style consumer app, or follow an Anthropic-style coding and developer-tool strategy. It chose the latter. Tang says the bet paid off.
http://Z.ai’s MaaS platform now has RMB 1.7B in ARR, up 60x in a year. Excluding R&D, its revenue can cover daily operations. But Tang is pushing for “mo gao” — a higher ceiling: long-horizon tasks, autonomous agent systems, and self-evolving AI.
He also says frontier intelligence should be open and buildable, not controlled by a few companies or rules. http://Z.ai may not chase short-term AI-app profits for two years. Investors may not love that part.