Zhipu Founder Tang Jie's Internal Letter: Launch 'Touch High' Plan, Pause Short-Term Monetization to Focus on AGI

On July 11, 2026, Zhipu founder Tang Jie released an internal letter titled 'The Giant Wave Has Come,' announcing the launch of the 'Touch High' plan, which will strategically invest in core AGI R&D over the next two years while pausing short-term commercial monetization. The letter states that AI is undergoing a leap from perceptual intelligence to cognitive intelligence, and achieving AGI requires overcoming four peaks: long-horizon tasks, autonomous agent systems, self-evolution, and extreme safety governance. Zhipu was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 8, 2026, with an IPO price of HKD 116.2, with its stock price peaking at HKD 2,980 and market cap briefly exceeding HKD 1.3 trillion. After the first batch of shares unlocked on July 8, the stock price stabilized, and the following day, a placement at HKD 1,588 per share raised approximately HKD 31.4 billion. Zhipu's flagship model GLM-5.2 matches or surpasses Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT-5.5 on multiple key metrics, and its MaaS platform annualized revenue reached RMB 1.7 billion, a 60-fold increase year-over-year.