A Fate-Changing Decision: How Zhipu's $50B Turnaround Defied the Odds

In May 2025, Zhipu held an emergency strategy meeting and decided to bet on a "triple-in-one" large language model, abandoning its vertical approach. GLM 4.5 was delayed to July, but unexpectedly took off in coding, making Zhipu the first company in China to bet on that track. Since then, GLM 5.2 ranked as the open-source SOTA, with ARR surging to $1 billion by July. From losing nearly 30% of customers hit by DeepSeek to reaching the top, this comeback began with a make-or-break decision.