Investorcorporate

Tencent (腾讯)

Shenzhen (深圳)

Shenzhen-based internet, games, cloud, payments, and social-platform group. Its internal AI work centers on Hunyuan, with distribution through WeChat, Tencent Cloud, games, ads, and enterprise services.

Website

5 labs backed

Zhipu AI / Z.ai (智谱AI)

Spun out of Tsinghua's Knowledge Engineering Group (KEG); founded by professors Tang Jie (唐杰) and Li Juanzi (李娟子); CEO Zhang Peng (张鹏).

Moonshot AI / Kimi (月之暗面)

Founded by ex-Tsinghua KEG / CMU PhD Yang Zhilin (杨植麟). Long-context flagship Kimi consumer chatbot.

Baichuan AI (百川智能)

Founded by ex-Sogou CEO Wang Xiaochuan (王小川). Pivoted to healthcare AI mid-2024; flagship is 'Futang Baichuan' pediatric AI model with Beijing Children's Hospital.

StepFun (阶跃星辰)

Shanghai foundation-model lab founded by ex-MSRA Chief Scientist Jiang Daxin (姜大昕). Densest MSRA-diaspora cluster. Yin Qi (印奇, Megvii co-founder) became chairman January 2026.

Sogou (搜狗)

Search engine spun off from Sohu by Wang Xiaochuan. Acquired by Tencent 2021. Wang plus 3 ex-Sogou execs founded Baichuan in 2023.