Washington has added Tencent Holdings-backed start-up Zhipu to a trade-restrictions blacklist, taking goal at one in every of a handful of fledgling corporations thought of frontrunners within the race to develop a solution to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The US division of commerce on Wednesday named the start-up to its Entity Checklist, which precludes US suppliers from promoting to the corporate with out a licence, in one other last-minute measure from the outgoing Biden administration. The transfer coincided with a recent spherical of laws aimed toward conserving superior chips corresponding to AI accelerators from making their solution to China.
Backed by Tencent and Alibaba Group, Zhipu is one in every of half a dozen promising AI builders in China which have secured funding at lofty valuations. The corporate, which grew out of Tsinghua College analysis and is engaged on giant language fashions corresponding to these from OpenAI, was final 12 months valued at near US$3-billion.
Zhipu mentioned the US “lacked factual foundation” for the choice. “Being included within the Entity Checklist is not going to have a considerable influence on the corporate’s enterprise,” Zhipu wrote on WeChat on Wednesday.
Earlier export prohibitions on superior AI chips from US makers like Nvidia to China already inhibit Zhipu’s entry to probably the most superior AI growth {hardware}. The corporate, which raised about $410-million in its newest spherical in December, mentioned it has tens of tens of millions of customers in China.
Zhipu is one in every of a plethora of Chinese language corporations focused by varied US authorities blacklists in latest weeks. Every week earlier, Tencent was added to a defence division listing of corporations related to the Chinese language navy, alongside Tesla battery maker Up to date Amperex Know-how. — (c) 2025 Bloomberg LP
Get breaking information from TechCentral on WhatsApp. Join right here
Don’t miss:
Prosus nosedives on information Tencent added to US navy blacklist
