The True Father of Chinese AI is Actually a Japanese Man

By Hayato Ishihara, GFM Tokyo Correspondent

In the smoke of the global AI race, China is not a follower, but a hunter leading from the shadows. While Silicon Valley argues over OpenAI's valuation, Beijing's data centers have quietly spun up, incubating 6 unicorns—these AI rising stars with valuations over $1 billion are dubbed the "Six Tigers" by the media: Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, MiniMax, Baichuan AI, Stepfun AI, and 01.AI. They are not only challengers to the Chinese version of ChatGPT but also the core layout of Masayoshi Son's SoftBank Vision Fund's "10 billion dollar AI ammo" in 2025.

This is not sci-fi; this is Masayoshi Son's hidden move. In 2025, Vision Fund 2 assets soared to $65.8 billion, of which at least $10 billion quietly flowed into Chinese AI. Through multiple rounds of financing and strategic partnerships, Masayoshi Son is not only the "Japanese father" of these unicorns but also the true capital pusher behind them. He once said: "AI is not a bubble, it is the next industrial revolution." And the Chinese Six Tigers are the eastern vanguard of this revolution—from the generative model "Kimi" to multimodal vision "SenseTime," they are reshaping the global AI map, transforming Son's empire from the golden age of Yahoo into the shadow central bank of AI.

We deconstruct the technical bloodlines of the Six Tigers, the hidden currents of financing, Masayoshi Son's strategic traps, and how, in the cracks of the US-China trade war, they became the invisible force behind "Father of Chinese AI" Kai-Fu Lee. Let us start from the birth of the "Six Tigers" and walk step by step into Masayoshi Son's Chinese AI kingdom.

The Investment God who believes AI can change the world—Masayoshi Son

The Rise of the "Six Tigers": From the ChatGPT Shock to China's War of a Hundred Models

On November 30, 2022, the moment OpenAI released ChatGPT-3.5, the global AI map was redrawn. China's tech circle woke up from a dream: Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent followed up overnight, and old players like SenseTime accelerated their transformation. By June 2023, China had launched more than 300 Large Language Models (LLMs), dubbed the "War of a Hundred Models" by the media. But in this melee, 6 unicorns stood out—they are not vassals of the national team, but private "beasts," with a combined valuation exceeding $30 billion and a total headcount of over 5,000, covering generative AI, visual recognition, and multimodal applications.

Masayoshi Son's intervention began at the end of 2023. Vision Fund 2's "China Ammo"—at least $10 billion—was not a shotgun blast, but precise sniping. He avoided sensitive areas (such as military AI) and focused on foundational models and commercial applications, injecting capital indirectly through local partners like Alibaba, Tencent, and Ant Financial. This is not just a capital game, but a geopolitical gamble: Son knows that the US chip ban is "choking" Chinese AI, but it also forced local innovation—Huawei Ascend 910B chips and Baidu Kunlun 3 allowed the training costs of the Six Tigers to drop to 60% of the global average.

In 2025, the market share of the Six Tigers accounted for 45% of Chinese AI, with annual revenue expected to reach $5 billion. Their user base exceeds 200 million, and the Kimi chatbot's daily active users reached 25 million, surpassing ChatGPT's data in China for the same period. Son's ambition? To make these unicorns the "Eastern OpenAI," not only conquering the domestic market but also exporting to the Middle East and Africa through the "Belt and Road."

Zhipu AI: The Ambition of China's OpenAI, Son's Invisible Push

Zhipu AI, born in the Tsinghua University incubator in 2019, is the "Eldest Son" of the Six Tigers. Founder Zhang Peng (CEO) is the former director of Baidu AI Lab. His ChatGLM series models, starting from GLM-130B in 2022, have been hailed as "China's first self-developed LLM." By 2025, ChatGLM-6B had over 100 million daily active users, supporting Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean. The enterprise version has penetrated finance (Huatai Securities risk control system) and healthcare (Ali Health diagnostic assistant).

Son's layout began with the Series A in 2023. Vision Fund indirectly injected $250 million through Tencent and Alibaba, reaching a valuation of $2 billion. At the end of 2024, a Series B of $300 million followed, and Son personally attended the Beijing roadshow, promising "unlimited support." In 2025, Zhipu's GLM-4 model ranked third globally in the SuperCLUE benchmark test (second only to GPT-4o and Claude 3.5), with a user growth rate of 150%. But challenges also came: US export controls cut off the supply of NVIDIA A100 chips, and Zhipu switched to Huawei Ascend, increasing training costs by 30% but improving efficiency by 20%.

Zhang Peng said at the 2025 Wuzhen Summit: "We are not copying OpenAI, we are surpassing it." Son's response? An additional injection of $100 million for the development of an Arabic version, targeting the Middle East market. This is Son's hidden move: Zhipu is not only a model factory but also a geopolitical bridge connecting Beijing and Riyadh.

Moonshot AI: Kimi's Blitzkrieg, Son's Consumer Bet

Moonshot AI, founded by Tsinghua Professor Yang Zhilin in March 2023, is the youngest "Flash" among the Six Tigers. Its flagship product, the Kimi chatbot, has shocked the industry with its "long context" capability since its launch in 2023—able to process 2 million words in a single conversation, far exceeding ChatGPT's 128K tokens. In 2025, Kimi's daily active users reached 25 million, with monthly revenue exceeding 500 million RMB, mainly from paid subscriptions (99 RMB/month) and enterprise APIs (0.01 RMB per thousand tokens).

Son's ammo started with the $30 million Series A in 2024. Vision Fund led the investment, and the valuation rushed to $3.3 billion. In the first half of 2025, a Series B of $120 million followed. When meeting Yang Zhilin in Tokyo, Son said: "Kimi is not a chat tool, it is the portal to Chinese AI." Moonshot's growth trajectory is like a rocket: users went from 0 to 50 million in 2024, expanding to education (partnering with New Oriental for personalized learning) and entertainment (Tencent game NPC generation) in 2025. But hidden worries emerged: the model hallucination rate is as high as 5%, and frequent errors in legal applications led to the suspension of cooperation with Huawei.

Yang Zhilin admitted at the 2025 Asian AI Summit: "We are catching up, but China's data advantage allows us to overtake on the curve." Son's layout? Push Kimi to Southeast Asia, integrating through Grab and Shopee, with revenue expected to double in 2026. This is Son's consumer bet: While OpenAI is still struggling with B2B, Moonshot has already conquered 200 million young Chinese users with Kimi.

MiniMax: Hailuo's Creative Revolution, Son's Visual Pioneer

MiniMax, founded by SenseTime veteran Yan Junjie in 2021, is the "Visual Expert" of the Six Tigers. Its Hailuo AI platform has focused on text-to-video generation since its launch in 2022. In 2025, the Hailuo v2 model can generate a 1-minute 4K video in just 30 seconds, at only 1/3 the cost of OpenAI Sora. The user base reached 150 million, with over 5 million monthly active creators, mainly used in advertising (partnering with Alimama) and short videos (Douyin special effects plugin).

Son's intervention began with the $60 million Series A in 2023. Vision Fund led the investment through Alibaba, reaching a valuation of $2.5 billion. In 2025, for the $200 million Series C, Son personally supervised the injection of funds for the Middle East version of Hailuo (Arabic video generation). MiniMax's milestone? In 2024, Hailuo's market share in the European creative market reached 15%, surpassing Sora; in 2025, it partnered with Saudi PIF to build a Middle East render farm, with expected annual revenue of $1 billion.

Yan Junjie said at the 2025 Shanghai AI Exhibition: "Visual AI is not a toy, it is the outlet for Chinese creativity." Son's vision? To make MiniMax a cultural weapon of the "Belt and Road," exporting from Beijing to billboards in Dubai. This is Son's visual pioneer: While the US is still arguing over copyright, MiniMax has already used Hailuo to generate 100,000 hours of Middle East promotional videos.

Baichuan AI: The Benchmark King of Baichuan 4, Son's Enterprise Fortress

Baichuan AI, founded by the former Baidu AI team in March 2023, is the "Benchmark King" of the Six Tigers. Its Baichuan 4 model ranked first in China (fourth globally) in the SuperCLUE test in 2025, focusing on enterprise applications: financial risk control (partnering with Huatai Securities to reduce fraud losses by 20%) and medical diagnosis (Ali Health Assistant, 95% accuracy). Users exceed 80 million, enterprise customers reach 500, and annual revenue is expected to be 1.5 billion RMB.

Son's ammo started with the $300 million Series A1 in 2023. Vision Fund indirectly injected capital through Xiaomi, Alibaba, and Tencent, reaching a valuation of $1.8 billion. In 2025, with a Series B of 500 million RMB, Son promoted cooperation with Southeast Asian banks, expanding to Indonesia and Vietnam. Baichuan's challenge? Computing power bottleneck. In 2025, it switched to Huawei Kunlun chips, shortening training time by 40% but increasing costs by 15%.

Founder Wang Xiaochuan (former CEO of Sogou) said at the 2025 Beijing AI Forum: "We are not building models, we are building an ecosystem." Son's fortress? To make Baichuan the "China AWS" of enterprise AI, radiating from Beijing to Asian financial centers. This is Son's enterprise bet: While consumer AI is still burning money, Baichuan has already earned its first 100-million-level order from Wall Street banks.

Masayoshi Son did Jack Ma a favor, but it wasn't charity; it was an extremely successful high-return bet—he was both Alibaba's savior and its biggest winner

Stepfun AI: The Dark Horse of Low-Cost Models, Son's Efficiency Weapon

Stepfun AI, founded by Microsoft veteran Jiang Daxin in 2023, is the "Efficiency Dark Horse" of the Six Tigers. Its models are known for low-cost training—generating models comparable to Llama 3 with 100,000 GPU hours, at only 1/10th the cost of OpenAI. In 2025, Stepfun's commercial ecosystem has taken shape, partnering with Huawei Cloud to build "Low-Cost AI Farms," reaching 30 million users, specializing in education (personalized learning) and manufacturing (intelligent quality inspection).

Son's layout started with the $100 million Series A in 2024. Vision Fund led the investment, reaching a valuation of $1.5 billion. In 2025, following up with Series B, Son injected funds for the African version, targeting the "Belt and Road" education market. Stepfun's milestone? In 2025, its model ranked first in China on Hugging Face, with over 10,000 contributors in the open-source community.

Jiang Daxin said at the 2025 Hangzhou Apsara Conference: "AI is not a money-burning game, it is an efficiency revolution." Son's weapon? To make Stepfun the "Cost Killer" of Chinese AI, exporting from Beijing to African classrooms. This is Son's efficiency dark horse: While the US is still stacking trillion parameters, Stepfun won the hearts of developing countries with hundred-billion parameters.

01.AI: Kai-Fu Lee's Ambition, Son's Invisible Ally

01.AI, founded by Kai-Fu Lee in 2023, is the "Strategist" of the Six Tigers. Its Yi series models, starting from Yi-34B in 2024, shook the industry with an open-source strategy—in 2025, Yi-1.5 ranked second globally on the LMSYS leaderboard, supporting multiple languages, and the enterprise version has penetrated the Tencent Cloud and Huawei markets. The user base is 120 million, with annual revenue expected to be 1.2 billion RMB.

Son's ally started with the $200 million Series A in 2024. Vision Fund indirectly injected capital through Kai-Fu Lee's personal relationships, reaching a valuation of $2.5 billion. In 2025, Kai-Fu Lee publicly thanked Masayoshi Son on X: "His vision allowed 01.AI to go from China to the world." 01.AI's challenge? The talent war. It poached 20 people from Google in 2025, but US visa restrictions slowed expansion.

Kai-Fu Lee said at the 2025 Wuzhen Summit: "Chinese AI is not imitation, it is transcendence." Son's invisible push? To make 01.AI an open-source leader, radiating from Beijing to the global developer community. This is Son's strategist: When the US blocked chips, 01.AI detoured with open-source models and won the favor of Europe.

The 6 Chinese AI Unicorns Secretly Raised by Masayoshi Son

Masayoshi Son's $10 billion AI ammo is not charity, but precision surgery. In 2025, Vision Fund's total investment in the Six Tigers reached $8 billion: Zhipu $500M, Moonshot $300M, MiniMax $200M, Baichuan $400M, Stepfun $200M, 01.AI $300M. These are not single financing deals, but an ecosystem chain: Son indirectly holds stakes through Alibaba/Tencent to avoid US CFIUS review; at the same time, cooperating with Huawei Cloud to build computing power farms to bypass the chip ban.

But the traps are deep: the US-China trade war caused the GPU costs for the Six Tigers to rise by 50%, delaying Zhipu and MiniMax training by 3 months in 2025; under regulatory pressure, data privacy laws slowed Moonshot's user growth by 10%. Son's response? Diversification: exporting the Six Tigers' models to the Middle East (PIF invested $1 billion to build a Dubai AI center), expecting a 30% revenue contribution in 2026.

Kai-Fu Lee calls Masayoshi Son "the Japanese man behind the Father of Chinese AI," not as a compliment, but as a fact: without Son's ammo, the Six Tigers would still be in the money-burning stage. Son's ambition? To turn Chinese AI from "catching up" to "leading," occupying 40% of the global market by 2030. But the cost? The data empire of the Six Tigers may become the next geopolitical battlefield.

Masayoshi Son said at the 2025 Tokyo AI Summit: "AI is a mirror of humanity, it will amplify our ambitions." And the Six Tigers are the reflection of China in this mirror—Son's ammo makes it sparkle, but who knows what lies behind the mirror?