Chinese AI Firms Ramp Up Model Launches Ahead of Lunar New Year
China's AI sector accelerates into 2024 with back-to-back model releases from leading players. DeepSeek plans a mid-February launch of its V4 model, featuring enhanced coding capabilities, while Zhipu AI (trading as Z.ai globally) prepares GLM-5 for release before Lunar New Year festivities begin on February 15.
Shanghai-based MiniMax joins the race with its M2.2 update, continuing the fierce domestic competition sparked by DeepSeek's R1 debut in January. Industry analysts highlight "agentic" reasoning improvements as the key battleground, with new models targeting creative writing, coding, and autonomous task execution.