According to data shared by investor Tommy Shaughnessy, Chinese large language model companies like Zhipu AI and MiniMax — both listed in Hong Kong — are carrying valuations that make their US counterparts look almost pedestrian. The metric in question: price-to-sales (PS) ratio, and the gap is jaw-dropping.
https://twitter.com/Shaughnessy119/status/2068899158442782732
Zhipu AI, which has a market cap of around $137 billion on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, generated only about $107 million in revenue in its fiscal year 2025. That works out to a PS ratio of roughly 1,280x. MiniMax, meanwhile, is valued at about $23 billion with revenue of $79 million, giving it a PS ratio of around 290x.
How does that compare to the US frontier labs? OpenAI and Anthropic, both still private, have PS ratios of just 34x and 21x, respectively. For another perspective, consider Alibaba (the company behind Tongyi Qianwen) — its PS ratio is a mere 1.6x, though its business includes much more than AI.
The analysis suggests that unless Chinese AI startups see explosive revenue growth in the near term — or secure revenue-sharing deals by investing in US inference providers — these sky-high multiples won't hold. Meanwhile, US AI labs, with their massive revenue bases, could see their multiples expand even further after going public.