TECH

Meituan Open-Sources 1.6-Trillion-Parameter AI Model Built on Chinese Chips

Published: Jul. 7, 2026 4:19 a.m. GMT+8

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On July 6, Meituan announced the open-sourcing of LongCat-2.0. Photo: VCG

Chinese tech giant Meituan has open-sourced a 1.6-trillion-parameter artificial intelligence model trained entirely on domestic chips, marking an industry first for a system of its size.

The LongCat-2.0 model, released Monday for free commercial use, was developed using a computing cluster of 50,000 Chinese-made processors. Local semiconductor firms, including Huawei Technologies Co., Moore Threads, and MetaX, immediately confirmed their hardware supports the system.

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Meituan open-sourced LongCat-2.0, a 1.6-trillion-parameter AI model trained on 50,000 domestic chips, an industry first for its size.
The model outperformed OpenAI's GPT-5.5 and Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 in programming but lags behind Claude Opus 4.8 in complex research.
Meituan's R&D spending rose 22% to 7 billion yuan in Q1 2026; shares closed up 4.7% at HK$74.95 but remain down 85% from 2021 peak.

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Who’s Who

Meituan: Meituan, a Chinese tech giant known for its food delivery platform, open-sourced the LongCat-2.0 AI model with 1.6 trillion parameters, trained entirely on domestic chips. This demonstrates innovation amid U.S. export controls. The company accelerated AI efforts after acquiring Light Year in 2023 and increased R&D spending by 22% in early 2026.

Huawei Technologies Co.: Huawei Technologies Co. is a Chinese semiconductor firm whose Ascend Atlas A2 chip has 64 GB memory per chip, compared to Nvidia's H100 with up to 96 GB. Huawei confirmed its hardware supports Meituan's open-sourced LongCat-2.0 AI model, trained on domestic chips under U.S. export controls.

Moore Threads: Moore Threads is a Chinese semiconductor firm that manufactures AI processors. It confirmed that its hardware supports Meituan's LongCat-2.0 model, which was trained on domestic chips. This highlights the company's role in advancing China's AI capabilities amid U.S. export controls.

MetaX: MetaX is a Chinese semiconductor company that confirmed its hardware supports Meituan's 1.6-trillion-parameter AI model, LongCat-2.0, trained entirely on domestic chips. It is one of several local firms enabling innovation despite U.S. export controls on advanced processors.

Nvidia Corp.: Nvidia Corp.'s flagship H100 GPU has up to 96 gigabytes of memory per chip, outperforming Chinese alternatives like Huawei's 64-gigabyte Ascend Atlas A2. U.S. export controls have spurred Chinese firms to innovate with domestic chips, but Nvidia remains a leader in memory capacity and interconnect bandwidth.

OpenAI: Based on the article, Meituan's LongCat-2.0 AI model outperformed OpenAI's GPT-5.5 in programming and mathematical reasoning benchmarks. No other information about OpenAI is provided in the article.

Anthropic: In the article, Anthropic's AI models Claude Opus 4.6 and 4.8 are referenced. Meituan's LongCat-2.0 outperformed Claude Opus 4.6 in programming and math but lags behind Claude Opus 4.8 in multi-disciplinary research and complex scenarios.

Light Year: In 2023, Meituan acquired the AI startup Light Year for $285 million. This acquisition accelerated Meituan's AI development, leading to the release of the LongCat-2.0 model trained on domestic chips.

OpenRouter: According to the article, OpenRouter is an API routing platform where an early preview of Meituan's LongCat-2.0 model, "Owl Alpha," became one of the most widely used free systems globally.

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What Happened When

Before April 2026：: Meituan accelerated AI push after acquiring startup Light Year for $285 million in 2023.

First quarter of 2026：: Meituan's research and development spending jumped 22% year-on-year to 7 billion yuan ($1 million).

April 2026：: An early preview version of LongCat-2.0, anonymously released as 'Owl Alpha', became one of the most widely used free systems on OpenRouter's API routing platform.

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