# MiniMax

> Source: https://aiwiki.ai/wiki/minimax
> Updated: 2026-06-21
> Categories: AI Companies, Chinese AI, Large Language Models, Video Generation
> From AI Wiki (https://aiwiki.ai), a free encyclopedia of artificial intelligence. Quote with attribution.

| MiniMax |
| --- |
| 上海稀宇科技有限公司 (Shanghai Xiyu Technology Co., Ltd.) |
| [![MiniMax logo](https://qqcb8dyk5bp2il4c.public.blob.vercel-storage.com/images/200px-minimax_logo1.png)](/wiki/file_minimax_logo1_png) |
| Type | Public (HKEX: 100) |
| Industry | [Artificial intelligence](/wiki/artificial_intelligence) |
| Founded | December 2021 |
| Founders | Yan Junjie (闫俊杰)**Yang Bin (杨斌)
Zhou Yucong (周雨丛) |
| Headquarters | Shanghai, China |
| Key people | Yan Junjie (CEO and Founder)
Wei Wei (Legal Representative) |
| Parent | Shanghai Xiyu Jizhi Technology Co., Ltd. |
| Listing entity | MiniMax Group Inc. (Cayman Islands) |
| Products | Talkie
[Hailuo AI](/wiki/hailuo) (海螺AI)
MiniMax Chat
Hai Luo (海螺)
ABAB series
MiniMax-01 series
MiniMax-M1
MiniMax-M2
Speech-02
Music-01 |
| Revenue | US$79.0 million (2025)[1] |
| Valuation | ~US$13 billion (IPO debut close, Jan 2026)[2] |
| Employees | 100+ (2023) |
| Website | [minimaxi.com](https://minimaxi.com) |

**MiniMax** (Chinese: 上海稀宇科技有限公司, Shanghai Xiyu Technology Co., Ltd.) is a publicly traded [artificial intelligence](/wiki/artificial_intelligence) (AI) company headquartered in Shanghai, China that develops [large language models](/wiki/large_language_model), multimodal AI systems, and consumer-facing AI applications spanning text, video, speech, and music generation. Founded in December 2021 by former [SenseTime](/wiki/sensetime) executives, MiniMax went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on January 9, 2026, where its shares more than doubled on the first day of trading, valuing the company at roughly US$13 billion and setting what the company describes as a global record for the shortest time, about four years, from an AI startup's founding to a public listing.[2] The company has been dubbed one of China's "Six Little Tigers" (六小虎) of AI by investors and media.[3] The company's name is derived from the minimax algorithm in game theory, which seeks to minimize potential losses in a worst-case scenario while maximizing potential gains.

As of December 31, 2025, MiniMax's products have served over 236 million individual users across more than 200 countries and regions, and more than 214,000 enterprises and developers across over 100 countries and regions.[1] At its August 31, 2024 Partner Day, founder Yan Junjie said the company's large model was handling about 3 billion AI interactions and processing 300 trillion tokens per day.[4][40] On January 9, 2026, MiniMax went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under stock code 100, with shares closing up about 109% on their first day of trading.[2]

## What does MiniMax do?

MiniMax positions itself as a global AI foundation model company that pairs proprietary research with mass-market consumer apps. Its work spans four pillars: [large language models](/wiki/large_language_model) (the ABAB, MiniMax-01, and MiniMax-M series), AI video generation ([Hailuo AI](/wiki/hailuo)), companion and character chat (Talkie and Xing Ye), and speech and music generation (Speech-02 and Music-01). In its first annual report after listing, CEO Yan Junjie framed the company's evolution from a model developer into a platform business, stating that the value of an AI platform is determined by the product of "intelligence density" and "Token throughput."[1][41] More than 70% of MiniMax's 2025 revenue came from international markets.[1]

## History

### Founding and Early Development

MiniMax was founded in December 2021 by several computer vision veterans from [SenseTime](/wiki/sensetime):[5][6]

- **Yan Junjie (闫俊杰)** - Former Vice President at SenseTime, responsible for building deep learning toolchains and underlying algorithms, now serves as CEO. Born in 1989 in a small town in Henan province, Yan taught himself advanced calculus in high school. He graduated from Southeast University with a degree in mathematics in 2006, obtained a PhD from the Institute of Automation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015, and completed postdoctoral research at Tsinghua University's Computer Science Department with a focus on [deep learning](/wiki/deep_learning) and [computer vision](/wiki/computer_vision). Before founding MiniMax, he spent more than six years at SenseTime, where he served as deputy head of its research institute overseeing development of deep-learning technologies, distributed computing, inference, and general intelligence systems.[7]

- **Yang Bin (杨斌)** - Previously co-founded the research center for Uber Advanced Technologies Group and worked at Waabi

- **Zhou Yucong (周雨丛)** - Former head of algorithms R&D at SenseTime

When it first started out, MiniMax received early-stage funding from MiHoYo, the Chinese video game developer known for Genshin Impact.[8]

### Funding Rounds

MiniMax has successfully raised significant funding through multiple rounds, making it one of the best-funded AI startups in China:

| Date | Round | Amount | Lead Investor(s) | Post-Money Valuation | Reference |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 2022 | Seed/Early | Undisclosed | MiHoYo | Undisclosed | [8] |
| June 2023 | Series A | $250+ million | Tencent-backed entity and others | ~$1.2 billion | [8] |
| March 2024 | Series B | $600 million | Alibaba Group | ~$2.5 billion | [9][10] |
| 2024-2025 | Additional rounds | ~$300 million | Multiple (reported) | >$4 billion | [11] |
| **Total Raised (Pre-IPO)** | | **$1.15+ billion** | | | |

Other investors include Hillhouse Investment, HongShan Capital Group (formerly Sequoia China), IDG Capital, Vitalbridge Capital, GL Ventures, Tencent Holdings, and the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.[9][10]

### When did MiniMax go public? IPO and Public Listing

On July 16, 2025, Reuters reported that MiniMax had confidentially filed for an initial public offering (IPO) on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.[12] The company became one of the fastest AI startups globally to go from founding to public listing, accomplishing it in roughly four years.

MiniMax priced its IPO at HK$165 per share, at the top of its marketed range, and raised approximately HK$4.2 billion (US$538 million). After the greenshoe (over-allotment) option was exercised, total proceeds reached HK$4.8 billion (approximately US$620 million), making it the largest IPO to date by an AI large-language-model company. CICC and UBS served as sponsors for the listing, which drew about 420,000 investors and an oversubscription rate of roughly 1,837 times.[2][13][42]

The listing entity, MiniMax Group Inc., is a Cayman Islands holding company controlled through a weighted-voting-rights structure, and trades on HKEX under stock code 100 (shown with a "W" suffix denoting weighted voting rights).[2][42] On its debut trading day of January 9, 2026, MiniMax shares surged about 109%, giving the company a market capitalization exceeding HK$103 billion (roughly US$13.2 billion), far above the pre-IPO valuation target of around US$4 billion. The IPO was notable for landing just one day after fellow Chinese AI startup [Zhipu AI](/wiki/zhipu_ai) debuted on the same exchange.[2][14]

The IPO also turned founder Yan Junjie into a billionaire. Forbes Asia estimated his net worth at about US$3.2 billion after the debut, when he was 36 years old.[7][43] In the weeks following the IPO, MiniMax stock continued to climb. By March 2026, the share price had surged past HK$1,300, pushing market capitalization above HK$300 billion. The stock received an additional boost in March 2026 when [NVIDIA](/wiki/nvidia) CEO [Jensen Huang](/wiki/jensen_huang) praised Chinese AI companies including MiniMax, causing shares to jump over 20% in a single session.[15]

### Financial Performance

MiniMax's revenue has grown rapidly, though the company continues to invest heavily and has not yet reached profitability:

| Metric | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Total Revenue | US$30.5 million | US$79.0 million | +158.9% |
| AI-Native Products Revenue | US$21.8 million | US$53.1 million | +143.4% |
| Open Platform & Enterprise Revenue | US$8.7 million | US$26.0 million | +197.8% |
| Gross Profit | US$3.7 million | US$20.1 million | +437.2% |
| Gross Margin | 12.2% | 25.4% | +13.2 pp |
| R&D Expenses | US$189.0 million | US$252.8 million | +33.8% |
| Adjusted Net Loss | US$244.2 million | US$250.9 million | +2.7% |
| Cash Balance (Dec 31) | US$880.6 million | US$1,050.3 million | +19.3% |

More than 70% of MiniMax's 2025 revenue came from international markets, reflecting the global popularity of products like Talkie and Hailuo AI.[1] Sales and distribution expenses fell 40.3% from US$87.0 million to US$51.9 million as the company improved its go-to-market efficiency. While the adjusted (non-IFRS) net loss was US$250.9 million, MiniMax's reported IFRS net loss for 2025 was much larger at US$1,871.6 million, driven mainly by non-cash remeasurement losses on its preferred shares as the company's valuation rose, recorded as a fair value loss on financial liabilities.[1] In February 2026, MiniMax said its annualized recurring revenue (ARR) had surpassed US$150 million.[44]

## Products and Services

### Consumer Applications

#### Glow and Its Successors

MiniMax's first product was **Glow**, launched in October 2022, which allowed users to create virtual characters, give them background stories and chat with them about various topics. Within four months of launch, the app had over 5 million users. Due to filing issues, Glow was terminated in March 2023.[16]

Glow was relaunched under two new brands:

- **Talkie** for international markets (June 2023)

- **Xing Ye (星野)** for the Chinese market (September 2023)

#### Talkie

Talkie is a companion AI chatbot app that enables users to create and converse with virtual characters based on fiction or real people using [generative AI](/wiki/generative_ai) technology. By mid-2024, Talkie had emerged as one of the most popular AI entertainment apps worldwide, directly competing with [Character.ai](/wiki/character_ai).

For the first half of 2024, Talkie ranked as the fourth most-downloaded AI app in the United States, ahead of Google-backed Character.ai which ranked tenth. More than half of its 11 million monthly active users were located in the U.S. Other popular markets included the Philippines, the United Kingdom, and Canada.[17] Globally, Talkie recorded 17 million downloads in the first eight months of 2024. The app's user base skews young, with those aged 18 to 35 accounting for more than 70% of users.[18]

The app features AI avatars of public figures, including Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, Elon Musk, and LeBron James.[19]

Talkie was pulled from Apple's App Store in December 2024 for unspecified "technical" reasons but later returned.[19] Despite this disruption, Talkie's global traction has been a key driver of MiniMax's international revenue, which accounts for over 70% of the company's total.

#### Hailuo AI (海螺AI)

Launched in March 2024, **Hailuo AI** is a multimodal large language model consumer platform that provides AI text, video, and music-generating features. Hailuo AI has become one of the most widely used AI video generation platforms globally, competing with [Sora](/wiki/sora) from [OpenAI](/wiki/openai), [Runway](/wiki/runway_ml) Gen-3, and [Kling](/wiki/kling) from [Kuaishou](/wiki/kuaishou). Key releases include:

| Model | Type | Release | Key Capabilities |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Video-01 | Text-to-video | September 2024 | 720p at 25fps, up to 6 seconds, cinematic camera movement, MP4 output (H.265 codec) |
| T2V-01-Director | Text-to-video (director mode) | January 2025 | Professional filmmaking tools for controlled video generation |
| I2V-01-Director | Image-to-video (director mode) | January 2025 | Professional-grade image-to-video with cinematic controls |
| I2V-01-Live | Image-to-video (animation) | 2025 | Smooth, vivid animation optimized for 2D illustrations |
| S2V-01 | Subject-to-video | 2025 | Character-consistent video from a single reference image; maintains facial identity across angles |
| Hailuo 02 | Next-gen video | June 2025 | Native 1080p, Noise-aware Compute Redistribution (NCR) architecture, 3x parameters, 4x training data vs Video-01, extreme physics mastery |
| Hailuo 2.3 | Enhanced video | Late 2025 | Improved physical actions, stylization, character micro-expressions, anime/illustration support, 50% cost reduction with 2.3 Fast variant |

Hailuo 02 introduced a core framework based on Noise-aware Compute Redistribution (NCR), which boosts training and inference efficiency by 2.5 times at comparable parameter scales. It ships in three resolution/duration variants: 768p for 6 seconds, 768p for 10 seconds, and 1080p for 6 seconds.[20]

In 2025, Hailuo AI introduced a "Media [Agent](/wiki/agent)" feature that evolved from the earlier Video Agent. The Media Agent supports comprehensive multimodal creation and automatically selects the appropriate models, offering a "one-click video generation" workflow that handles the entire pipeline without manual editing.[21]

#### Hai Luo (海螺) Productivity Tool

**Hai Luo** is an AI-powered productivity and copilot tool, similar to [Microsoft Copilot](/wiki/microsoft_copilot). It can perform tasks like document summarization, content creation, and code generation. It supports processing long documents up to 200,000 words.[22]

### AI Models

MiniMax has developed a succession of increasingly capable AI models across text, vision, speech, and music:

#### ABAB Series

The ABAB series represents MiniMax's earlier generation of [large language models](/wiki/large_language_model):

| Model | Type | Release | Key Features |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ABAB 5 | [LLM](/wiki/large_language_model) | August 2023 | Foundation for AI chatbot and productivity tools |
| ABAB 5.5 | LLM | 2023 | Context window of 16,384 tokens (ABAB 5.5s: 8,192 tokens) |
| ABAB 6 | [Mixture of experts](/wiki/mixture_of_experts) (MoE) | January 2024 | 1 trillion parameters (claimed), comparable to [GPT-4](/wiki/gpt-4) on certain benchmarks, 32,768 token context[23] |
| ABAB 6.5 | Mixture of experts | April 17, 2024 | Trillion-parameter MoE, 200K token context window; ABAB 6.5s processes ~30,000 words per second[24] |

#### MiniMax-01 Series (Lightning Attention)

The MiniMax-01 series, released in January 2025, introduced a novel hybrid architecture combining Lightning [Attention](/wiki/attention), [Softmax Attention](/wiki/attention), and [Mixture-of-Experts](/wiki/mixture_of_experts) (MoE). The series was published as an open-source release with weights and code on [Hugging Face](/wiki/hugging_face) and GitHub.[25]

**Lightning Attention** is MiniMax's core technical innovation. Traditional [attention mechanisms](/wiki/attention) scale quadratically with sequence length, making very long context windows computationally expensive. Lightning Attention achieves linear complexity by dividing the attention calculation into two distinct components: intra-block computations (using left-product attention) and inter-block computations (using right-product attention). This design maintains an information capacity of O(d^2/h), which is larger than standard softmax attention's capacity of O(d), where d is the model dimension and h is the number of attention heads.[25]

To train these models efficiently, MiniMax developed several parallelism strategies including Linear Attention Sequence Parallelism Plus (LASP+), varlen ring attention, and Expert Tensor Parallel (ETP).[25]

| Model | Type | Parameters | Context Window | Key Features |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| MiniMax-Text-01 | Text-only LLM | 456 billion total (45.9B active per token) | 1 million (training), up to 4 million (inference) | 32 MoE experts, hybrid Lightning/Softmax attention, open-weight[25] |
| MiniMax-VL-01 | Multimodal LLM | 456 billion total | 1 million+ | Visual and text understanding capabilities[25] |

MiniMax-Text-01 matches the performance of state-of-the-art models like [GPT-4o](/wiki/gpt-4) and [Claude 3.5 Sonnet](/wiki/claude) on standard benchmarks while offering a context window 20 to 32 times longer.[25]

#### MiniMax-M1 (Hybrid-Attention Reasoning)

MiniMax-M1, released in June 2025, is the world's first open-weight, large-scale hybrid-attention reasoning model. It combines the Lightning Attention architecture from MiniMax-01 with [reinforcement learning](/wiki/reinforcement_learning)-based reasoning capabilities, supporting a 1-million-token context window.[26]

The entire reinforcement learning phase for M1 used only 512 NVIDIA H800 GPUs for three weeks, with a rental cost of just $534,700. The model requires only 30% of the computing power needed by rival [DeepSeek](/wiki/deepseek)'s R1 model when performing deep reasoning tasks, representing a significant breakthrough in computational efficiency.[26]

#### MiniMax-M2 Series (Open-Source Flagship)

MiniMax-M2, released in late 2025, is a compact and cost-effective MoE model with 230 billion total parameters and 10 billion active parameters per token, released under the MIT license for both commercial and non-commercial use. It can be served on as few as four [NVIDIA](/wiki/nvidia) H100 GPUs at FP8 precision.[27]

| Model | Release | Key Features |
| --- | --- | --- |
| MiniMax-M2 | Late 2025 | 230B total / 10B active parameters, top-tier agentic and tool-calling performance, MIT license[27] |
| MiniMax-M2.1 | Early 2026 | Optimized for robustness in coding, tool use, instruction following, and long-horizon planning |
| MiniMax-M2.5 | February 2026 | Polyglot code mastery, enhanced multilingual capabilities |
| MiniMax-M2.7 | March 2026 | "Self-evolving" model; scored 56.22% on SWE-Pro and 57.0% on Terminal Bench 2; performs 30-50% of its own RL research workflow[28][45] |

MiniMax-M2 achieved the highest scores among open-weight models for real-world agentic and tool-calling tasks at the time of release, placing it at or near the level of top proprietary systems like [GPT-5](/wiki/gpt-5) and [Claude](/wiki/claude) Sonnet 4.5.[27]

MiniMax-M2.7, released in 2026, is described as "self-evolving": MiniMax used the model to build, monitor, and optimize its own [reinforcement learning](/wiki/reinforcement_learning) harnesses, with the company stating M2.7 handled between 30% and 50% of its own development workflow by autonomously reading logs, debugging, and analyzing failure trajectories over iterative loops of 100 rounds or more.[28] M2.7 also marked a shift away from MiniMax's earlier permissive licensing: it shipped under a "Modified-MIT" license that requires written company authorization for commercial use, a change that drew criticism from parts of the developer community who labeled it "faux open-source."[28][45]

#### Speech Models

| Model | Release | Key Features |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Speech-01 | 2024 | Initial text-to-speech offering |
| Speech-02 | April 2025 | 32 languages, 99% vocal similarity from 10 seconds of reference audio; two variants: Speech-02-HD (high-fidelity for voiceovers/audiobooks) and Speech-02-Turbo (ultra-low latency for real-time applications)[29] |

Speech-02 uses a learnable timbre extractor (Learnable Speaker Encoder) integrated with an AR [Transformer](/wiki/transformer) architecture. It supports English variants (US, UK, Australian, Indian), Asian languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indonesian), European languages (French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Russian, Ukrainian), and more. It earned top honors on both the [Artificial Analysis](/wiki/artificial_analysis) Speech Arena and [Hugging Face](/wiki/hugging_face) TTS Arena benchmarks.[29]

#### Music Models

**Music-01**, introduced in August 2024, is an AI music generation model that simultaneously generates both accompaniment and vocals. Users can upload reference music for the model to learn rhythm and style, then input lyrics to receive a new AI-generated piece. It supports classical, pop, rock, electronic, and dozens of additional styles. The current maximum output length is 60 seconds with up to 400 characters of lyrics.[30]

### Comprehensive Model Timeline

| Model Name | Type | Release Date | Key Features |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ABAB 5 | LLM | August 2023 | Foundation chatbot model |
| ABAB 5.5 | LLM | 2023 | 16,384 token context |
| ABAB 6 | MoE LLM | January 2024 | Trillion parameters, GPT-4 comparable |
| ABAB 6.5 | MoE LLM | April 2024 | Trillion parameters, 200K context |
| Music-01 | Music generation | August 2024 | Simultaneous vocals and accompaniment |
| Video-01 | Text-to-video | September 2024 | 720p, 6 seconds, cinematic quality |
| MiniMax-Text-01 | MoE LLM | January 2025 | 456B params, 4M token context, Lightning Attention |
| MiniMax-VL-01 | Multimodal LLM | January 2025 | Vision + text understanding |
| Speech-02 | Text-to-speech | April 2025 | 32 languages, 99% vocal similarity |
| Hailuo 02 | Video generation | June 2025 | Native 1080p, NCR architecture |
| MiniMax-M1 | Reasoning LLM | June 2025 | Hybrid-attention reasoning, 30% compute of DeepSeek R1 |
| MiniMax-M2 | Open-source LLM | Late 2025 | 230B/10B active, MIT license, top agentic performance |
| S2V-01 | Subject-to-video | 2025 | Character-consistent video from single image |
| Hailuo 2.3 | Enhanced video | Late 2025 | Improved physics, stylization, micro-expressions |
| MiniMax-M2.5 | Open-source LLM | February 2026 | Polyglot code mastery |
| MiniMax-M2.7 | Proprietary LLM | March 2026 | Self-evolving, automated RL research |

### API and Enterprise Services

MiniMax provides enterprise API services through its Open Platform (platform.minimax.io), serving over 214,000 enterprises and developers globally as of December 2025. The platform offers access to text, vision, video, speech, and music generation models.

The company offers competitive pricing for its API services:

| Model | Input Price (per 1M tokens) | Output Price (per 1M tokens) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| MiniMax-M2 | $0.255 | $1.00 |
| MiniMax-M2.5 | $0.20 | ~$0.80 |
| MiniMax-Text-01 (up to 200K context) | $0.40 | $1.30 |
| MiniMax-Text-01 (up to 1M context) | $1.30 | $4.20 |

The platform is supported by a multi-cloud GPU infrastructure of 10,000+ GPUs, serving billions of API calls per day. Enterprise features include 99.99% uptime SLA, automatic failover, load balancing, and 24/7 monitoring.[31] Demand for the M-series accelerated sharply after the IPO: MiniMax reported that average daily token consumption of its M2 text models grew more than sixfold from December 2025 to February 2026, and that token usage from coding workloads grew more than tenfold over the same period.[44]

## Corporate Structure

MiniMax operates through its parent company, Shanghai Xiyu Jizhi Technology Co., Ltd. (上海稀宇极智科技有限公司), which was established in 2021. The company is a subsidiary of MiniMax HONGKONG Limited with 100% ownership. The publicly listed entity is MiniMax Group Inc., a Cayman Islands holding company controlled through weighted voting rights. Following the January 2026 IPO, MiniMax trades publicly on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange under stock code 100.[32][42]

## Market Position

### China's "Six Little Tigers" of AI

MiniMax is one of China's "Six Little Tigers" (六小虎), a designation for the leading Chinese AI startups focused on large language models and multimodal AI. The Six Little Tigers represent a new generation of Chinese AI companies that emerged after the launch of [ChatGPT](/wiki/chatgpt) in late 2022, distinct from the earlier "Four Little Dragons" (SenseTime, [Megvii](/wiki/megvii), [CloudWalk Technology](/wiki/cloudwalk), and [Yitu Technology](/wiki/yitu)) that primarily focused on computer vision. The six companies are:[3][33]

| Company | Focus | Notable Products | Valuation (approx.) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **MiniMax** | Multimodal AI, consumer apps | Talkie, Hailuo AI, ABAB/M-series models | >US$13 billion (post-IPO) |
| [Zhipu AI](/wiki/zhipu_ai) | General LLMs, enterprise AI | GLM series, ChatGLM | >US$3 billion |
| [Moonshot AI](/wiki/moonshot_ai) | Long-context AI | Kimi chatbot | ~US$3 billion |
| Baichuan Intelligence | General LLMs | Baichuan series | >US$2 billion |
| [01.AI](/wiki/01_ai) | Cost-efficient LLMs | Yi series | ~US$1 billion |
| StepFun (阶跃星辰) | Multimodal AI | Step series | >US$2 billion |

The term evolved from the earlier "Four Little Tigers" designation used in 2024, which included MiniMax, [Zhipu AI](/wiki/zhipu_ai), [Moonshot AI](/wiki/moonshot_ai), and [Baichuan Intelligence](/wiki/baichuan).[34]

### Competitive Landscape

MiniMax competes across multiple AI segments:

- **Character AI/Companion chatbots:** Talkie competes with [Character.ai](/wiki/character_ai), Replika, and other companion AI platforms. In the first half of 2024, Talkie surpassed Character.ai in U.S. app downloads.[17]
- **Video generation:** Hailuo AI competes with [Sora](/wiki/sora) ([OpenAI](/wiki/openai)), [Runway](/wiki/runway_ml) Gen-3, [Kling](/wiki/kling) (Kuaishou), Google [Veo](/wiki/veo), and Pika Labs. Hailuo 02 is noted for strong instruction following and physics simulation.[20]
- **Large language models:** The MiniMax-M series competes with [GPT-4](/wiki/gpt-4)/GPT-5 ([OpenAI](/wiki/openai)), [Claude](/wiki/claude) ([Anthropic](/wiki/anthropic)), [Gemini](/wiki/gemini) ([Google](/wiki/google)), [DeepSeek](/wiki/deepseek), [Qwen](/wiki/qwen) ([Alibaba](/wiki/alibaba_cloud)), and [Llama](/wiki/llama) ([Meta](/wiki/meta)).
- **Text-to-speech:** Speech-02 competes with [ElevenLabs](/wiki/eleven_labs), [OpenAI](/wiki/openai) TTS, and Google Cloud TTS.
- **Music generation:** Music-01 competes with [Suno](/wiki/suno), [Udio](/wiki/udio), and Google's MusicLM.

### Industry Recognition

In July 2025, [NVIDIA](/wiki/nvidia) CEO Jensen Huang met with MiniMax founder Yan Junjie in Beijing and publicly praised China's AI innovation, stating that models from companies like "DeepSeek, Alibaba, Tencent, MiniMax, and Baidu" are "world class" and "have spurred AI developments worldwide."[15] Following the meeting, Huang commented that developers and entrepreneurs in China are driving AI technology innovation at an astonishing speed.

### Industry Outlook

In 2024, MiniMax founder Yan Junjie predicted that "in the future, there will only be five large model companies left in the world," noting that the ratio of the AI market between internet companies and AI startups may reach 9:1, more extreme than the 6:4 ratio seen in the transition from internet to mobile internet.[35] Looking ahead to 2026, Yan argued that the convergence of advances in coding, office work, and multimodal creation could drive a 10- to 100-fold increase in token demand across the industry.[44]

## Technical Infrastructure

### Lightning Attention Architecture

MiniMax's primary technical contribution to the AI field is Lightning Attention, a linear-complexity attention mechanism that enables efficient processing of extremely long sequences. Published alongside the MiniMax-01 release (arXiv: 2501.08313), Lightning Attention works by splitting the attention computation into intra-block and inter-block operations:[25]

- **Intra-block computation** uses standard left-product attention for tokens within the same block, preserving high-quality local attention patterns.
- **Inter-block computation** uses right-product attention for tokens across different blocks, keeping the computational cost linear with respect to sequence length.

This hybrid approach allows models to handle context windows of 1 million tokens during training and extrapolate to 4 million tokens during inference at affordable cost. MiniMax combined Lightning Attention with standard softmax attention layers in a ratio that balances expressiveness and efficiency.[25]

### Is MiniMax open source?

MiniMax has been one of the more prominent open-weight developers among the Six Little Tigers, though its stance has tightened over time. In January 2025, MiniMax released its MiniMax-01 model family, including weights and code. CEO Yan Junjie admitted he would have gone open-source from day one if he could choose again, as the decision invites developer collaboration while showcasing technical capabilities. The MiniMax-M2 series continued this open-source strategy with an MIT license, allowing unrestricted commercial use.[25][27] By the time of MiniMax-M2.7 in 2026, however, the company moved to a more restrictive "Modified-MIT" license that requires written authorization for commercial use, a shift that critics characterized as a retreat from genuine open source.[28][45]

### Parallelism and Training Innovations

MiniMax has developed several training optimization techniques for distributed computing at scale:[25]

- **LASP+ (Linear Attention Sequence Parallelism Plus):** An advanced parallelism strategy specifically designed for linear attention layers.
- **Varlen Ring Attention:** A variable-length ring attention mechanism for handling sequences of different lengths during parallel training.
- **ETP (Expert Tensor Parallel):** A parallelism method optimized for Mixture-of-Experts architectures.
- **Compute-Communication Overlap:** Methods to overlap computation and communication during distributed training, minimizing idle time across GPU nodes.

## Controversies

### Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

In September 2025, Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and NBCUniversal filed a joint copyright infringement lawsuit against MiniMax and its parent company Shanghai Xiyu Jizhi Technology Co. Ltd., alleging "willful and brazen" copyright infringement through its Hailuo AI service. The studios alleged that MiniMax markets Hailuo AI as a "Hollywood studio in your pocket" and built its business from intellectual property stolen from Hollywood studios.[36][37]

In December 2024, Broadcast magazine reported that Hailuo AI can reproduce the logos of British television channels Channel 4, Channel 5, and ITV in its AI-generated videos.[38]

### Other Legal Issues

MiniMax is reportedly being sued by iQiyi, a Chinese video streaming service that alleges MiniMax illicitly trained on iQiyi's copyrighted recordings.[39]

### DeepSeek Impact

The sudden rise of [DeepSeek](/wiki/deepseek) in early 2025 disrupted the strategies of several of the Six Little Tigers, including MiniMax. Several startups had to quickly adjust their businesses and in some cases downsize teams. However, MiniMax weathered this disruption better than some peers by doubling down on consumer applications and multimodal AI rather than competing solely on base model performance.[33]

## See also

- [Reactor](/wiki/reactor_ai)
- [PixVerse](/wiki/pixverse)
- [Artificial intelligence](/wiki/artificial_intelligence)
- [Large language model](/wiki/large_language_model)
- [SenseTime](/wiki/sensetime)
- [DeepSeek](/wiki/deepseek)
- [Generative artificial intelligence](/wiki/generative_ai)
- [Moonshot AI](/wiki/moonshot_ai)
- [Zhipu AI](/wiki/zhipu_ai)
- [01.AI](/wiki/01_ai)
- [Character.ai](/wiki/character_ai)
- [Mixture of experts](/wiki/mixture_of_experts)
- [Attention mechanism](/wiki/attention)

## References

[1] MiniMax Global Announces Full Year 2025 Financial Results. MiniMax News, March 2026. https://www.minimax.io/news/minimax-global-announces-full-year-2025-financial-results

[2] "MiniMax doubles in Hong Kong debut, marking yet another Chinese AI listing." CNBC, January 9, 2026.

[3] "The Development Status of China's AI Unicorns: From the 'Four Little Dragons' to the 'Six Little Tigers'." Oreate AI Blog.

[4] "Meet China's top six AI unicorns: who are leading the wave of AI in China." TechNode, January 9, 2025.

[5] "MiniMax: A young man from a county town in Henan and his 300 billion yuan." PANews.

[6] "Inside MiniMax: Testing if AGI is Possible Without Infinite VC Money." Turing Post.

[7] "Yan Junjie, founder of Chinese AI firm MiniMax, becomes billionaire at 36." VnExpress International, January 2026.

[8] "Chinese AI unicorn MiniMax scores big in US with Talkie chatbot entertainment app." South China Morning Post.

[9] "China AI Startup MiniMax Plans Hong Kong IPO in 2026 Q1." Caproasia, December 23, 2025.

[10] "MiniMax's Financing Story: Seven Rounds in Four Years." Futunn News.

[11] "MiniMax's $618m IPO creates China's latest AI billionaire." Founded.com.

[12] "MiniMax confidentially filed for Hong Kong IPO." Reuters, July 16, 2025.

[13] "MiniMax Shares Double in Hong Kong Debut After $619 Million IPO." Bloomberg, January 8, 2026.

[14] "MiHoYo-backed AI firm MiniMax jumps on Hong Kong debut, market value tops $11.5 billion." TechNode, January 9, 2026.

[15] "Jensen Huang lauds China's AI models as Nvidia gears up to resume chip exports." CNBC, July 16, 2025.

[16] "Glow app history and rebranding." Various Chinese technology publications.

[17] "Chinese AI unicorn MiniMax scores big in US with Talkie chatbot entertainment app." South China Morning Post / Yahoo Finance.

[18] "Talkie's global traction puts MiniMax in AI's top tier, but risks loom." KrASIA.

[19] "Global Sensation 'Talkie' AI Chat App Pulled from US App Store Amid Privacy and Security Concerns." CTOL Digital Solutions.

[20] "MiniMax Hailuo 02, World-Class Quality, Record-Breaking Cost Efficiency." MiniMax News.

[21] "Introducing Hailuo Video Agent in Beta." MiniMax News.

[22] MiniMax Hai Luo productivity tool documentation.

[23] "MiniMax releases trillion-billion MoE model ABAB 6.5." Futunn News, April 2024.

[24] "The General Large Language Model abab6.5 Series." MiniMax News.

[25] "MiniMax-01: Scaling Foundation Models with Lightning Attention." arXiv:2501.08313, January 2025.

[26] "MiniMax-M1: Scaling Test-Time Compute Efficiently with Lightning Attention." arXiv:2506.13585, June 2025.

[27] "MiniMax-M2 is the new king of open source LLMs (especially for agentic tool calling)." VentureBeat.

[28] "New MiniMax M2.7 proprietary AI model is 'self-evolving'." VentureBeat.

[29] "MiniMax Speech 02: Pioneering a New Era of AI Speech Generation." MiniMax News, April 2025.

[30] "Music generation model Music-01." MiniMax News.

[31] MiniMax Open Platform documentation. platform.minimax.io.

[32] MiniMax Hong Kong Stock Exchange listing. HKEX, January 2026.

[33] "2025 Comprehensive Review of the 'Six Tigers' in the Large Model Field." 36Kr.

[34] "China's 4 new 'AI tigers' emerge as investor favourites." South China Morning Post, 2024.

[35] Yan Junjie interview on industry outlook. Various Chinese media, 2024.

[36] Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal joint copyright lawsuit against MiniMax. September 2025.

[37] "Studios allege MiniMax markets Hailuo AI as 'Hollywood studio in your pocket.'" Legal filings.

[38] "Hailuo AI can reproduce British TV channel logos." Broadcast magazine, December 2024.

[39] iQiyi copyright lawsuit against MiniMax. Various reports.

[40] "3 billion interactions with the world." MiniMax News (Partner Day), August 31, 2024. https://www.minimax.io/news/3-billion-interactions

[41] "MiniMax's First Annual Report Shows Revenue Up 160%, CEO Says AI Platform Value Depends on Intelligence Density and Token Throughput." BigGo Finance, March 2026.

[42] "MINIMAX GROUP INC. - W (100)." Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) securities quote; "Firms steer AI developer MiniMax's HKD4.82bn Hong Kong IPO," Law.asia.

[43] "Yan Junjie, the 36-year-old chairman and CEO of MiniMax, is now worth \$3.2 billion after the AI model developer's Hong Kong IPO." Forbes Asia, January 2026.

[44] "Yan Junjie of MiniMax: The convergence of three trends in the AI industry by 2026 could lead to a 10- to 100-fold increase in Tokens." Futunn News, 2026.

[45] "MiniMax Just Open Sourced MiniMax M2.7: A Self-Evolving Agent Model that Scores 56.22% on SWE-Pro and 57.0% on Terminal Bench 2." MarkTechPost, April 12, 2026.

## External links

- [Official Website](https://www.minimaxi.com)

- [MiniMax Open Platform](https://platform.minimax.io)

- [MiniMax on GitHub](https://github.com/minimax-ai)

- [MiniMax on Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/MiniMaxAI)

- [MiniMax-01 Technical Paper (arXiv)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.08313)

- [MiniMax-M1 Technical Paper (arXiv)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.13585)