In the first half of 2026, large AI-industry financings landed thick and fast across the globe.
By Zhidx’s tally, there were 165 domestic-or-over-100-million-yuan AI financing events worldwide in the half, totalling about 2.7 trillion yuan. China and the United States led: China had 77 such events, the most of any country, at about 126.3 billion yuan, while the US had 71 events at about 2.46 trillion yuan, far ahead on amount.
Inside China, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and Shenzhen concentrated the deals: Beijing led with 42 events, Hangzhou led on amount thanks to DeepSeek’s 50 billion yuan A round. By field, money kept flowing to base models, compute and inference, and also spread to video generation, AI agents, healthcare and enterprise services.
DeepSeek, StepFun and Moonshot were the three largest Chinese raises, together about 90 billion yuan. Across the whole Chinese AI private market, IT Juzi puts first-half funding above 300 billion yuan, already past the full-year 2025 total.
Global: 165 events, China leads on count, US on amount
China and the US together took nearly nine in ten of the 165 events. The US lead in amount comes from OpenAI, Anthropic and xAI: OpenAI disclosed two strategic stakes totalling about US$232 billion (about 1.56 trillion yuan), Anthropic two rounds totalling about US$95 billion (about 638.4 billion yuan), and xAI a US$20 billion (about 134.4 billion yuan) series E before its SpaceX sale, the three alone above 2.33 trillion yuan.
By stage, series A led with 31 events, then B with 22, seed with 20, strategic with 17 and angel with 14. The billion-yuan rounds cluster in the early and mid stages of a company’s life.
China: 77 events, Beijing most, Hangzhou richest
Zhidx counts 77 domestic over-100-million-yuan AI rounds in the half, about 126.2 billion yuan. Beijing led with 42, Shanghai had 16, Hangzhou and Shenzhen six and five, and Guangzhou, Hefei and Suzhou two each. By amount, Hangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai led; Hangzhou’s about 50.7 billion yuan was pulled up by DeepSeek’s 50 billion yuan A round, Beijing’s about 46.3 billion yuan, Shanghai’s about 26.8 billion yuan.
The rounds stay early and mid stage: angel led with 13, pre-A 12, A 11, B+ 8, seed 7. The 77 events map to 58 companies, many founded around 2023, the new wave grown after the large-model boom, working on general models, AI infra, video, 3D and agents.
DeepSeek leads, top five near 100 billion yuan
The five largest Chinese AI raises were DeepSeek, StepFun, Moonshot, Helixon and SiliconFlow. DeepSeek led with about 50 billion yuan, StepFun about 21.8 billion, Moonshot about 18.14 billion, Helixon about 5.29 billion and SiliconFlow over 3.48 billion.
DeepSeek, founded in Hangzhou in 2023 by Liang Wenfeng, shipped DeepSeek-V4 previews through 2026 and opened its Hong Kong filing at end-June under the 18C route. StepFun, founded in Shanghai in 2023 by Jiang Daxin, launched the Step AOS agent OS and STEPX device brand. Moonshot, founded in Beijing in 2023 by Yang Zhilin, open-sourced the Kimi K3 model. Helixon is a Tsinghua-incubated AI drug-discovery firm. SiliconFlow is a token-infra provider whose founder Yuan Jinhui studied under Zhang Bo.
The top five took about 98.71 billion yuan, near 78 per cent of China’s over-100-million-yuan AI total. ModelBest also moved fast, with over 50 billion yuan raised in the half, though its latest round landed on 15 July, just outside the window.
Applications lead, video and agents hot
Among the over-100-million-yuan deals, applications led with 33 events at 43 per cent, world models or physical AI 15 at 19 per cent, AI infra 13 at 17 per cent, general models 12 at 16 per cent and data services 4 at 5 per cent. In applications, video and image and 3D generation led with 13 events at 39 per cent, agents 6 at 18 per cent, enterprise and AI health 4 each at 12 per cent.
China’s AI money is leaving pure model bragging for video, agents, drugs and enterprise use. Whether a model reaches a real industry and earns revenue is now a core test for funding.
The first half showed the US concentrating giant cheques in a few frontier labs while China spread smaller bets across many 2023-vintage startups and leaned into applied AI where revenue shows first. The logic is shifting from concept hype to iteration and commercial delivery.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original Zhidx (Intelligence Thing) report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience.
Translated and adapted from Zhidx (Intelligence Thing) (https://www.zhidx.com/p/572575.html).