What 01.AI does

01.AI (legal entity Beijing Lingyiwanwu Information Technology Co., Ltd., 北京零一万物信息技术有限公司) is a Beijing-based private AI company founded in 2023 by Kai-Fu Lee that develops and commercializes a family of open-source bilingual (English-Chinese) foundation models under the Yi brand. The Yi model line spans Mixture-of-Experts (Yi-Lightning), dense flagship (Yi-Large), context-extended base (Yi-6B-200K, Yi-34B-200K), chat and base variants in the Yi-1.5 series (6B/9B/34B), multimodal text-image models (Yi-VL-6B/34B), and code-specialized models (Yi-Coder-1.5B/9B with 128K context and 52 languages), all distributed via Hugging Face, ModelScope, and GitHub. On top of this model portfolio, 01.AI sells the WorldWise Enterprise LLM Platform, which delivers tailored AI agents to enterprise customers, most notably the "Super Employee" agent introduced in 2025 and the WorldWise Platform 2.5 launched in 2026 targeting multi-agent enterprise deployment.

The company monetizes through three streams: enterprise subscriptions and tailored AI solutions on WorldWise, commercial licensing of Yi models (granted permanently on application with biennial renewal obligations), and its recently spun-off SparkView AI video editing business, which is pursuing independent financing. Go-to-market is a hybrid of open-source community-led developer adoption and high-touch CEO-led enterprise sales, supported by distribution partnerships with Alibaba Cloud (lead investor of its November 2023 unicorn round at a $1 billion post-money valuation) and certified by China's Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) at the top level for its LLM One-box Solution Machine.

In late 2024 and 2025, 01.AI executed a major restructuring, laying off its pre-training algorithm and infrastructure teams (including Silicon Valley staff), spinning off SparkView, and pivoting from training super-large foundation models toward lightweight models, agent-led enterprise products, and international expansion. New co-founder Shen Pengfei (formerly of Baidu AI Cloud) joined in October 2025 to lead business development, and the company reported 2024 revenue exceeding RMB 100 million (~$14 million), placing it among Forbes China's 2026 AI Tech Enterprises TOP 50.

Name

01.AI

Legal name

Beijing Lingyiwanwu Information Technology Co., Ltd.

Website

https://01.ai

Company type

Private

Founded year

2023

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

01.AI is a Beijing-based AI company that builds and licenses the open-source Yi family of bilingual large language models and sells the WorldWise Enterprise LLM Platform, delivering tailored AI agents and multi-agent solutions to enterprise customers globally.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Foundation Models / Large Language Models

NAICS

Software Publishers (5132), Computer Systems Design and Related Services (54151)

SIC

Services-Prepackaged Software (7372), Services-Computer Integrated Systems Design (7373)

akta.pro primary industry

Open-Source Model Ecosystems & Model Marketplaces (HDAAACAM)

akta.pro secondary industries

Agents & Autonomous Workflows (Tool Use, Planning, Multi-Agent) (HDAAACAF), Multimodal Generation (Text-Image-Video-Audio) & Creative Toolchains (HDAAACAG), Enterprise Foundation Model Integration & APIs (Connectors, Governance, Deployment) (HDAAACAO)

Keywords

• Large language models
• Foundation model development
• Enterprise AI platform
• Open-source AI models
• Multimodal AI models

Headquarters

HQ city

Beijing

HQ country

China

HQ region

Asia

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Operations

Revenue model

1. Enterprise AI Platform Services: Revenue generated from the WorldWise Enterprise LLM Platform providing AI agents and tailored solutions to enterprise customers
2. Yi Series Models Commercial Licensing: The company offers commercial licenses for Yi series models including Chat Models (Yi-34B-Chat, Yi-34B-Chat-4bits, Yi-34B-Chat-8bits, Yi-6B-Chat, Yi-6B-Chat-4bits, Yi-6B-Chat-8bits) and Base Models (Yi-34B, Yi-34B-200K, Yi-9B, Yi-6B, Yi-6B-200K). The license is granted permanently upon successful registration, with renewal notifications required every two years.
3. AI Video Editing (SparkView): Spin-off AI video editing project being developed for independent financing as part of the company's restructuring

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion3 records

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

01.AI develops and distributes the Yi series of open-source bilingual (English/Chinese) foundation large language models, including Yi-Lightning (Mixture-of-Experts), Yi-Large, Yi-1.5, Yi-VL multimodal, and Yi-Coder models. The company sells the WorldWise Enterprise LLM Platform, providing tailored AI agent solutions for enterprise deployment, alongside commercial licensing of the Yi models.

Product overview

01.AI is an AI 2.0 company specializing in foundation model technology and applications. The product portfolio centers on the Yi series of open-source bilingual (English/Chinese) large language models, including Yi-Lightning (Global SOTA Mixture-of-Experts LLM), Yi-Large (Global SOTA LLM), Yi-1.5 series (upgraded chat and base models with coding, math, reasoning capabilities), Yi-VL multimodal models (text-image), and Yi-Coder (code generation). The enterprise offering includes the WorldWise Enterprise LLM Platform providing AI agents and tailored solutions for B2B deployment. The company offers free open-source models with optional commercial licensing through a structured license agreement.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• WorldWise Enterprise LLM Platform Enterprise AI Agent platform providing tailored solutions for enterprise deployment of LLMs; version 2.5 released in 2026 marking multi-agent system enterprise deployment. Targeted at large enterprises seeking AI-powered productivity solutions.
• Yi-Lightning Global State-of-the-Art Mixture-of-Experts LLM representing 01.AI's flagship foundation model with advanced reasoning and generation capabilities, available via open-source distribution and commercial licensing.
• Yi-Large Global State-of-the-Art large language model positioned as a top-tier foundation model for enterprise and developer use with advanced reasoning and instruction-following capabilities.
• Yi-34B 34 billion parameter bilingual (English/Chinese) base foundation model, outperforming OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo in contextual capacity at launch. Available with commercial licensing for Chat (Yi-34B-Chat) and Base variants including 200K context extended versions.
• Yi-1.5 Series Upgraded Yi series models (6B/9B/34B parameters) available in Chat and Base variants; top performers among similarly sized open-source models with excellent capabilities in coding, math, reasoning, and instruction-following, supporting context lengths of 4K, 16K, and 32K.
• Yi-VL-6B/34B Multimodal foundation model supporting multi-round text-image conversations with strong image comprehension at 448x448 resolution and bilingual text recognition including image texts.
• Yi-Coder Series Open-source code LLM (1.5B/9B parameter versions) with 128K long-context modeling and support for 52 programming languages, designed for code generation tasks.

Quantifiable outcome

• Yi-34B outperforms OpenAI's GPT-4 Turbo in contextual capacity
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers1 record

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability9 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• TELUS DigitalminorOthers01.AI's models were included in TELUS Digital's second GenAI Safety Model Benchmark testing 34 AI models from 10 global providers across more than 620,000 adversarial tests, demonstrating 01.AI's position among global AI providers.

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Zhipu AI: Beijing-based foundation model startup behind the GLM/ChatGLM series, a direct Chinese open-source and enterprise LLM competitor with overlapping enterprise agent ambitions.
• DeepSeek: Chinese AI company that has rapidly emerged as a leading open-source LLM provider (DeepSeek-V3, R1), competing directly with 01.AI's Yi series on open-source benchmarks, developer mindshare, and Chinese/English bilingual capabilities.
• Baichuan Inc. Chinese open-source LLM developer whose Baichuan series competes head-to-head with Yi on open benchmarks, open-source distribution, and Chinese enterprise adoption.
• Moonshot AI: Chinese foundation model startup behind the Kimi family of models, competing with 01.AI in both bilingual foundation models and consumer/enterprise AI assistants.
• Mistral AI: European open-source LLM developer with a similar open-source-plus-enterprise-platform model, comparable to 01.AI's strategy of distributing models openly while building paid enterprise offerings.

Broad incumbents

• Tencent (Hunyuan): Chinese tech giant with the Hunyuan foundation model family, competing broadly with 01.AI in Chinese enterprise AI and offering integrated cloud + model services.
• Baidu (ERNIE): Chinese tech incumbent with the ERNIE foundation model and broader AI Cloud offering, competing with 01.AI for enterprise AI customers; 01.AI's co-founder Shen Pengfei is a former Baidu AI Cloud executive.
• Meta (Llama): Meta's Llama family is the dominant global open-source LLM, setting the benchmark against which Yi models are measured and shaping the open-source distribution paradigm 01.AI follows.
• Alibaba (Qwen / Tongyi): Alibaba Cloud is both 01.AI's lead investor and a direct competitor through its Qwen/Tongyi foundation model family, which is one of the most widely used open-source Chinese LLMs globally.
• OpenAI: Closed-source frontier model provider (GPT-4 Turbo and successors) against which Yi-34B initially benchmarked, representing the premium enterprise AI competitor 01.AI targets with WorldWise.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• GitHubgithub.com/01-ai

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Subsidiaries1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds2 records

Investors2 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments1 record

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about 01.AI