(Yicai) Dec. 18 -- MiniMax and Zhipu AI, two of China’s leading developers of large artificial intelligence models, have passed listing hearings at the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, clearing a key hurdle toward initial public offerings, multiple sources confirmed.

MiniMax passed its HKEX listing hearing on Dec. 17, while Zhipu AI participated in and passed its hearing on Dec. 16, Tencent News reported. MiniMax’s listing is being underwritten by investment banks including UBS, while Zhipu AI’s deal is led by China International Capital Corporation, according to the report.

MiniMax submitted its prospectus confidentially in June, becoming the first Chinese large-model company to file an IPO application in Hong Kong. Due to the Christmas holiday period, MiniMax is scheduled to list in Hong Kong in January 2026, while Zhipu AI has yet to disclose its listing timetable.

Zhipu AI declined to comment, while MiniMax had not responded as of press time, The Paper reported.

Founded in 2019, Zhipu AI emerged from the commercialization of research from the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University. The annual recurring revenue of the company’s developer-oriented tools and model business has exceeded CNY100 million (USD14.2 million), with 2.7 million paying API users, its Chief Executive Zhang Peng said earlier this month. The company expects operating revenue to double this year and is working to raise the share of its API business to 50 percent, signaling a strategic shift toward standardized services.

MiniMax was established in 2021. In October, it released and open-sourced the MiniMax-M2 large language model, which ranked among the global top five in overall scores and first among open-source models on the Artificial Analysis evaluation list. This made it the first Chinese open-source model to enter the top five alongside peers such as OpenAI and Google. MiniMax’s valuation reached USD2.5 billion after it completed a USD600 million Series A financing round in March led by investors including Alibaba Group Holding, Tencent Holdings, Sequoia Capital, and Hillhouse Group.

Editor: Emmi Laine