Z.AI Completes Giant Data Center With Chinese Chips to Train AI
- Z.AI has completed construction of a giant data center that houses only Chinese-made chips, a big step in Beijing’s efforts to replace restricted Nvidia Corp. silicon for future AI development.
- The company has begun partially operating the hub designed to help develop its cutting-edge GLM platforms, and has built or operates several computing clusters each with more than 10,000 chips.
- The data center’s establishment marks a milestone for Z.AI as a provider of AI to companies and enterprises, drawing comparisons with Anthropic.
Z.AI has completed construction of a giant data center that houses only Chinese-made chips, a big step in Beijing’s efforts to replace restricted Nvidia Corp. silicon for future AI development.
The company formerly known as Zhipu has begun partially operating the 1-gigawatt hub designed to help the Chinese company develop its cutting-edge GLM platforms, a person familiar with the matter said. That’s enough power to energize roughly 750,000 homes at any given moment.
Z.AI has now built or operates several computing clusters each with more than 10,000 chips, the person said, asking to remain anonymous to discuss non-public information.
Representatives for the company didn’t respond to an emailed request for comment.
Questions have persisted around how Chinese AI labs like Moonshot and DeepSeek developed some of the world’s most capable AI models, and whether local alternatives to Nvidia are capable enough to support longer-term development of the technology.
Huawei Technologies Co. is China’s leading designer of AI accelerators, competing with local firms such as Cambricon Technologies Corp. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to try and match Nvidia’s performance.
At that scale, Z.AI’s data center would be among the largest server hubs built by a Chinese AI lab. Cloud providers such as Alibaba and China Telecom Corp. are known to be the biggest builders of computing infrastructure currently, given the billions of dollars required not just to purchase high-end servers in bulk but also to ensure stable power and water supply.
Z.AI is competing hard with Moonshot, the Beijing-based startup that on Friday stunned the world with a Kimi K3 model that challenges top frontier models from OpenAI and Anthropic PBC.
Moonshot was forced to suspend new subscriptions Sunday with the goal of “prioritizing compute for current members,” the company said in a social media post Sunday.
To address computing bottlenecks, China is preparing to spend around 2 trillion yuan ($295 billion) over the next five years on building data centers across the country.
Zhipu just raised billions of dollars for its own coffers via a Hong Kong initial public offering and subsequent share sale.
It’s on track for annual recurring revenue of $1 billion after achieving its 2026 sales target in July, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg News earlier.
The data center’s establishment marks a milestone for a company trying to distinguish itself as a provider of AI to companies and enterprises, drawing comparisons with Anthropic.
