Consumer Daily – Today’s News On September 21, Yicai reported that Zhipu’s AI programming tool, ZCode, which was recently embroiled in data privacy concerns, has completed its open-source transition. Zhipu emphasized that this move marks the first step in addressing external worries about ZCode’s data handling practices. Moving forward, the company plans to adopt a more community-driven approach, encouraging external downloads, code reviews, and collaborative improvements.

▲Zhipu AI

According to a National Business Daily report, Zhipu has engaged the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology and NSFOCUS to conduct comprehensive security audits. Following evaluations by these institutions, Zhipu confirmed that the ZCode v3.14.0 client has undergone necessary rectifications.

To bolster transparency, Zhipu announced it will publish monthly code security audit reports and establish a formal mechanism for reporting product vulnerabilities. This comes after social media allegations claimed ZCode was “silently uploading” users’ programming data to third-party cloud servers without consent.

On September 18, Zhipu clarified in a statement that the controversy stemmed from a default-enabled ZCode feature called “Code Repository Indexing.” The company asserted that uploaded data was used solely to generate cloud-based RepoWiki (code repository knowledge base) pages and was promptly destroyed without retention.

Zhipu apologized to affected users and outlined remedial measures: open-sourcing the ZCode codebase, inviting third-party system reviews with progress disclosures, and offering all ZCode users a “weekly quota reset” as compensation.

▲Zhipu Company

Public records show Zhipu launched ZCode in late 2025 as an AI-powered coding assistant for individual developers and small teams. Leveraging Zhipu’s large language models, the tool supports multi-language code completion, bug troubleshooting, project documentation generation, local code repository reading, and code indexing.

ZCode operates on a quota-based payment model, providing users with a free initial quota and charging for additional computing resources.

Today’s News observed that Zhipu has maintained rapid innovation in 2026, releasing GLM-5, GLM-5.1, GLM-5.2, and GLM-5.3 between February and August—approximately one major upgrade every two months.

In the capital markets, Zhipu announced on September 13 that it had secured nearly $5 billion in financing, primarily from overseas institutions. Investors included long-term capital firms across Asia, Europe, and the Americas.

▲Zhipu Interim Results Announcement

Zhipu’s 2026 interim financial report revealed first-half revenue of 954 million yuan, up 399.7% year-on-year, surpassing its 2025 full-year total. The company reported a 2.072 billion yuan loss, a 12.1% improvement from the previous year, with R&D spending reaching 2.131 billion yuan, a 33.6% increase.

▲Zhipu Interim Results Announcement

Notably, Zhipu’s open platform and API business emerged as its largest revenue driver, generating 825 million yuan in the first half of 2026—a 2735.7% surge from the previous year, accounting for 86.5% of total revenue (up from 15.2% in the same period last year). By August 2026, Zhipu’s MaaS platform ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) reached $1.6 billion, with Token usage soaring over 40-fold since January and API pricing rising approximately 101%.

Source: Consumer Daily

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