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Z.ai (Zhipu AI)Industry & manufacturing

GLM (Z.ai) for industry & manufacturing

Chinese AI lab (Zhipu, international Z.ai) with the open-weight GLM family under MIT licence, particularly strong at programming and agent tasks at low prices.

Recommended for industry & manufacturing

GLM (Z.ai) performs strongly on coding and agent benchmarks at a fraction of the price, and glm-5.2 is fully open-weight under an MIT licence; that suits predictive maintenance on machines.

GDPR profileOur summary of what the provider itself publishes about your data: EU hosting possible, no training on your data for business use, and self-hosting available. Caution applies to a model with a documented problem, such as an investigation by a regulator. How we measure
GDPR: Caution
QualityQuality from blind duels on LMArena: users choose between two anonymous answers. A difference of about 20 points is noticeable, a few points is noise. How we measure
1483Elo, independent
Editorial scoreOur own assessment on 10 of suitability for professional work, price and privacy. This is a judgement, not a measurement; that is why it always sits alongside the Elo. How we measure
7,7
Entry price
Free
Full GDPR check

What GLM (Z.ai) does in industry & manufacturing

Core tasks in industry & manufacturing
  • Predictive maintenance on machines
  • Visual quality inspection
  • Drafting work instructions and manuals
  • Optimising production and inventory planning
What GLM (Z.ai) is strong at
  • Top performance on coding and agent benchmarks at a fraction of the price
  • GLM-5.2 is fully open-weight under the MIT licence
  • 1 million tokens of context on the flagship
  • Affordable Coding Plan subscriptions for tools such as Claude Code

GLM (Z.ai) carries a concrete GDPR concern. The parent company Zhipu (Beijing) falls under Chinese data and security legislation, regardless of where the servers are located. For sensitive data, self-hosting the MIT-licensed weights is the recommended mitigation. Weigh this heavily before deploying it in industry & manufacturing.

Confidentiality and GDPR

GDPR: Caution

Production and process data is trade secret and sometimes subject to export controls. Check whether factory data leaves the premises and whether on-premise operation is possible.

The international service Z.ai runs through JINGSHENG HENGXING TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. (Singapore); personal data is in principle processed in Singapore. According to the data processing agreement, API content is processed in real time and not stored. GLM-5.2 is open-weight under MIT and can therefore be fully self-hosted or hosted through an EU provider.

Rule of thumb Use the business variant with a data processing agreement, and keep a human in the loop for decisions that matter.
Caution Parent company Zhipu (Beijing) falls under Chinese data and security legislation, regardless of where the servers are located. For sensitive data, self-hosting the MIT-licensed weights is the recommended mitigation.

Prices

Z.ai ChatFreeFree chatbot at chat.z.ai with GLM-5.x
GLM Coding Plan Lite$18 / monthIntroductory promo $12.60/month; Pro $72 and Max $160 per month
API, GLM-5.3$1.40 / $4.40 per 1MSame price as GLM-5.2 (calls are forwarded to 5.3); GLM-5.3-Flash $0.15 / $0.50; GLM-5 $1.00 / $3.20; GLM-4.7-Flash free

Other models for industry & manufacturing

Gemini for industry & manufacturingGoogle · editorial 8.61527Qwen for industry & manufacturingAlibaba Cloud · editorial 7.91484Le Chat (Mistral) for industry & manufacturingMistral AI · editorial 8.41426DeepSeek for industry & manufacturingDeepSeek · editorial 7.41475
All options for industry & manufacturing
Professional tools on GLM (Z.ai)

We are not aware of a professional tool for industry & manufacturing that runs publicly on GLM (Z.ai).

Questions about GLM (Z.ai) for industry & manufacturing

Is GLM (Z.ai) suitable for industry & manufacturing?
Yes. GLM (Z.ai) performs strongly on coding and agent benchmarks at a fraction of the price, and GLM-5.2 is fully open-weight under an MIT licence, which fits industry & manufacturing well. Always assess the specific task and keep a professional in the loop.
May I put confidential data into GLM (Z.ai)?
Production and process data is trade secret and sometimes subject to export controls. Check whether factory data leaves the premises and whether on-premise operation is possible. The international service Z.ai runs via JINGSHENG HENGXING TECHNOLOGY PTE. LTD. (Singapore); personal data is in principle processed in Singapore. According to the data processing agreement, API content is processed in real time and not stored. GLM-5.2 is open-weight under MIT and can therefore be hosted entirely yourself or via an EU provider.
How much does GLM (Z.ai) cost?
There is Z.ai Chat (Free), GLM Coding Plan Lite ($18 / month), API, GLM-5.3 ($1.40 / $4.40 per 1M). Check current prices on the official site.
Next stepAll 31 options for industry & manufacturingProfessional tools and general assistants side by side, on GDPR profile, price and quality.

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