Zhipu AI’s new tool turns GLM-5.2 into agent amid Anthropic rivalry

Zhipu AI has launched a new tool to help developers build autonomous coding assistants, heating up its rivalry with US firm Anthropic as the latter removes a hidden code tracking Chinese users of its Claude Code platform.

Beijing-based Zhipu, known as Z.ai overseas and listed in Hong Kong under the name Knowledge Atlas Technology, on Wednesday introduced ZCode, a harness for its latest artificial intelligence model, GLM-5.2.

A harness is a control system that helps large language models execute tasks autonomously, essentially allowing them to function as AI agents. Such tools have emerged as a major battleground for Chinese and US AI labs as automated coding platforms surge in popularity.

To draw developers, Zhipu rolled out a range of promotions on Wednesday. These include increasing data quotas for its existing subscribers by 50 per cent and offering 5 million free tokens – the basic units of data used by AI – to new ZCode users.

The company is gearing up to go head-to-head with leading US labs following the release of the powerful GLM-5.2 model last month. The launch was hailed by some in Silicon Valley as another “DeepSeek moment” for Chinese open-source AI, in reference to the rival Chinese firm that disrupted the global tech sector last year.

“Competition and collaboration are what push all of us forward,” said Zixuan Li, Zhipu’s head of global operations, in a post on X on Thursday, adding that the company built ZCode by “standing on the shoulders of an incredible open developer community”.

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