O1.ai, the Chinese AI startup founded by AI pioneer Kai-Fu Lee, is aiming to raise funds ahead of a potential 2027 IPO, joining other AI labs that have gone public or plan to.
Unlike China’s other “AI Tigers,” including Zhipu, DeepSeek, and Moonshot, O1.ai has pivoted from building frontier models to developing enterprise AI infrastructure, a shift Lee attributed to last year’s “DeepSeek moment” that reshaped the cost structure of training AI systems.
Building models from scratch is viable only for a few companies with functionally unlimited resources, Lee told Bloomberg, so others needed new strategies. His approach has paid off, with international clients now making up half of O1.ai’s business, though Lee dismissed targeting others in the US, citing wariness of Chinese software.
