MiniMax
More info
- Founded
- 2021
- Founder
- Yan Junjie
- Type
- AI lab (LLM)
Shanghai lab founded by a former SenseTime researcher, best known abroad for the Hailuo video generator and its AI companion apps.
MiniMax (稀宇科技) was founded in 2021 by Yan Junjie, who came from the computer-vision firm SenseTime. Unlike the more academic tigers, MiniMax leaned into consumer products early: the chat companion Talkie (Xingye in China) and the Hailuo video generator, which spread internationally in 2024.
The company develops its own foundation models (the abab series) and is backed by Alibaba and Tencent. It is counted among the "AI tigers" alongside Zhipu, Moonshot and Baichuan, but stands out by making money directly from apps rather than from APIs and research reputation.