OpenAI is Flirting with Danger by Naming China’s Blacklisted Zhipu AI as a Threat

China’s AI ecosystem is going strong. So much so that it is starting to compete internally, and the much-talked-about DeepSeek is no longer at the top.   Zhipu AI is not a name that typically comes up in casual conversations about AI supremacy. It doesn’t have the fanfare of DeepSeek or the benchmark-breaking headlines of Alibaba's latest models.  But this week, OpenAI made it clear that Zhipu is a threat worth watching. In a blog post that reads more like a geopolitical intelligence memo than a developer update, OpenAI called out the Beijing-backed startup as a significant player in China’s AI playbook. “While we hear the most about new models, just as significant is CCP headway in getting other governments around the world to adopt its AI,” the post warn