The Development Status of China's AI Unicorns: From the 'Four Little Dragons' to the 'Six Little Tigers'
Reshaping China's AI Industry Landscape: From Computer Vision to Large Model Era
In recent years, China’s artificial intelligence industry has been undergoing a profound reshaping. Once leading the wave of Chinese AI, the ‘AI Four Little Dragons’—SenseTime, Megvii, CloudWalk Technology, and Yitu Technology—are now facing fierce competition from a new generation of AI companies. Meanwhile, six startups—BaiChuan Intelligence, Zero One Everything, Zhipu AI, Minimax (Xiyu Jizhi), Dark Side of Moon and Leap Star—have gained recognition as the new ‘Six Little Tigers’ due to their technological breakthroughs in large models and commercial potential; each is valued at over several billion dollars.
This evolution in industrial structure reflects phase characteristics in artificial intelligence technology development. The early ‘AI Four Little Dragons’ primarily relied on computer vision technologies for commercialization in security and finance sectors. In contrast, the new generation ‘Six Little Tigers’ focuses on large language models and multimodal AI technologies aiming for broader application scenarios. Differences in technical routes have also led to varied business models—the former relies more on project-based revenue while exploring subscription-based services and API calls with greater scalability.
Notably, China’s large model industry is experiencing explosive growth. As of March 2025, over 320 generative AI large models have completed filing processes indicating intensifying competition within this field. Recently Cambricon plans to raise nearly 5 billion yuan to enhance its computing power for large models; Zhipu AI announced it had completed financing worth 3 billion yuan and initiated an IPO process—all actions indicate that capital markets remain optimistic about opportunities within the realm of large model applications.
Cambricon: Boosting Large Model Computing Power with Nearly 5 Billion Yuan Fundraising
Cambricon stands out as a representative enterprise in China’s artificial intelligence chip sector; recent activities reflect its strategic layout during this era dominated by large models. Founded by brothers Chen Tian Shi and Chen Yun Ji in 2016, the company is transitioning from traditional AI chip supplier towards becoming a provider of foundational infrastructure for computing power related to large models.
In 2024,Cambricon disclosed its latest private placement plan intending not exceeding 4.98 billion yuan fundraising specifically aimed at building chips & software platforms relevantto largemodels projects.The proposed investment amount targeting chip platform projectsforlarge model tasks reaches up-to29billionyuan covering various typesofchip products cateringto different taskscenarios including training chips,languagemodel inferencechips,multimodal reasoningchipsand exchangechips meetingallcomputationalneeds throughoutthe lifecycleoflargemodels . nForsoftware ecosystem construction ,Cambriconplans16billionyuanto builda softwareplatform tailoredforlarge-modelapplicationsaimedat enhancingopennessandease-of-useofitssoftwareecosystembetteradaptedtopopularframeworkssuchasPyTorchandTensorFlow reducingdeveloper migrationcostsandstrengtheningecologicalstickiness.ThisstrategicmoveindicatesthatCambriconisno longer satisfiedwithonlyprovidinghardware solutionsbuthopestobuildacompletecomputationalecosystem . n nFromfinancialdata perspective,Cambricons transformationhasalreadyshown initialresults.In2024 financialreport,thecompanyachievedrevenue11 .74billionyuan representing65 .56%year-on-yeargrowth ;netprofit attributabletocommonshareholders recordedlossesamountingto-4 .52billionyuan but reducedby46 .69%comparedwiththesameperiodlastyear.More strikingly ,inQ1ofthe year2025 performance surged dramatically : revenues reached11 .11billionyuan increasing4230 %year-on-yearwhile net profit attributabletocommon shareholderswas3 .55billionyuanshowinganincreaseof256 %markingtwo consecutivequartersinprofitability.Thisremarkable leap wasprimarilydrivenbyexplosivegrowthfromcloudproductlines which generatedrevenue totalingaround11 .66billionyuan demonstrating1187 %.78 increaseoverpreviousyears.Cambricons annual reportclearlystates thatthis growth stemsdirectlyfromdomestic demand arisingfromapplicationsoflarge-modelsinvariousfields..