Per The Information, Zhipu AI is also (after DeepSeek) exploring a custom ASIC after GLM-5.2 usage reportedly jumped 27x in one week.
A custom ASIC removes flexibility, but it can cut power draw and per-token cost.
Nvidia GPUs are strong general-purpose machines, but inference at scale has different economics. A fixed model can run better on silicon designed around its own repeated operations.
Zhipu has not chosen a partner, and the project may take more than 2 years.
The pattern is now bigger than one Chinese lab or one model launch. Chinese AI companies are trying to make software, hardware, and deployment less separable.
DeepSeek is building an inference chip to cut dependence on Nvidia and Huawei in China’s $50B AI-chip market. DeepSeek’s chip work is still early, with outside ...