Bernstein Initiates Coverage of Chinese AI Labs With Mixed Ratings

Financial brokerage Bernstein has initiated coverage of listed artificial intelligence labs in China, forecasting that the sector could generate between $100 billion and $200 billion in annual revenue, excluding consumer applications. The firm maintains an optimistic long-term outlook for the region as the market shifts toward compute availability and cost efficiency.

Bernstein assigned an Outperform rating and a HK$1,350 price target to Z.ai. The brokerage cited the company's research pedigree, strong coding-focused AI capabilities, and the competitive GLM-5.2 model as primary drivers for this positive valuation.

Conversely, Bernstein issued a Market-Perform rating and a HK$275 price target for Minimax. This more cautious stance follows the underwhelming performance of the M3 model. Analysts described the upcoming M3 Pro release as a "make-or-break" event for the company. Additionally, Bernstein noted that Minimax's strategic focus on AI video generation might yield smaller revenue opportunities compared to the coding and agentic AI sectors.