Liu Debing, the chairman and cofounder of Chinese AI model company Knowledge Atlas Technology, better known as Zhipu, has become a billionaire following the Hong Kong market debut Thursday of hiis OpenAI challenger.

The 49-year-old, who cofounded the firm in 2019 with chief executive Zhang Peng, is worth $2.1 billion, based on his stake in Zhipu, according to Forbes estimates. The company raised $558 million n the IPO by selling 37.4 million shares , according to its prospectus. Its early investors include Alibaba, Tencent, Hillhouse, Qiming Venture Partners and Chinese government funds.

The company, which is now worth some $7.5 billion, plans to use most of the proceeds for research and development purposes, its prospectus shows. Shares ended the day up 13.2% after a muted open. During the morning trading session, shares even briefly dipped below the IPO price .

Zhipu, which operates a ChatGPT-like service called Z.ai, didn’t respond to requests for comment. The listing—which has been hotly anticipated as China’s first major generative AI upstart to go public—may not be as eye-catching as some have hoped. The performance paled in comparison with the initial blockbuster gains eked out by Chinese AI chip companies such as Moore Threads, MetaX Integrated Circuits or Shanghai Biren Technology. Another Chinese AI model company, MiniMax, is set to list on the Hong Kong stock exchange on Friday.

These companies all operate in sectors deemed strategic by Beijing and their IPOs have been oversubscribed thousands of times—leading to double- or........

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