StepFun

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Shanghai Jieyue Xingchen Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd
StepFun
Native name
上海阶跃星辰智能科技有限公司
Company type Private
Industry Information technology
FoundedApril 6, 2023;2 years ago (2023-04-06)
Founders
  • Jiang Daxin
  • Zhu Yibo
  • Jiao Binxing
Headquarters Shanghai, China
Website www.stepfun.com   OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Shanghai Jieyue Xingchen Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd (known as StepFun) is an artificial intelligence (AI) company based in Shanghai, China. It has been dubbed one of China's "AI Tiger" companies by investors.

Contents

Background

StepFun was founded in April 2023 by former Microsoft employees. [1] Investors include Tencent, Qiming Venture Partners and Shanghai State-owned Capital Investment. [2]

In July 2025 at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, StepFun announced the "Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance" which consisted of Chinese developers of large language models (LLMs) and AI chip manufacturers. This included companies such as Huawei, Biren Technology, Moore Threads and Enflame. [3] Another second alliance named the "Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce AI Committee" was also established that included StepFun, SenseTime, MiniMax, MetaX and Iluvatar CoreX. [3]

StepFun focuses on multimodal models which are designed to understand multiple types of input data such as text, video and audio. [4]

Products

In July 2024 at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, StepFun officially launched Step-2, a trillion-parameter LLM, along with the Step-1.5V multimodal model and the Step-1X image generation model. [5]

In February 2025, StepFun and Geely jointly announced the open-sourcing of two multimodal large models to global developers. They were Step-Video-T2V and Step-Audio. [6] [7]

In July 2025, StepFun released Step 3. [8] The Model-Chip Ecosystem Innovation Alliance aimed to optimize Step 3 for domestic chips. [9]

In April 2025, Step-R1-V-Mini was released. It is a multimodal reasoning model designed for visual interpretation and image understanding. [4]

References

  1. ↑ Chen, Wency (21 June 2024). "Shanghai AI start-up bets on 'scaling law' to overcome US chip ban". South China Morning Post . Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  2. ↑ Jiang, Ben (26 December 2024). "Shanghai firm helps AI start-up Stepfun raise 'hundreds of millions of dollars'". South China Morning Post . Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  3. 1 2 Mo, Liam (29 July 2025). "Chinese AI firms form alliances to build domestic ecosystem amid US curbs". Reuters .
  4. 1 2 Jiang, Ben (12 May 2025). "China's StepFun aims to stand out in AI race with multimodal models". South China Morning Post . Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  5. ↑ Chen, Wency (8 July 2024). "Chinese AI can benefit from bigger models, more data, says start-up founder". South China Morning Post . Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  6. ↑ Xiao, Yisi (18 February 2025). "China's Geely and Stepfun Join Open-Source AI Trend With Two Models". Yicai Global. Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  7. ↑ Berman, Noah (8 June 2025). "What is StepFun?". The Wire China . Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  8. ↑ Zhang, Yushuo (29 July 2025). "USD2.3 Billion of Deals Are Inked at WAIC 2025 in Shanghai". Yicai Global. Retrieved 1 January 2026.
  9. ↑ "Chinese AI chipmakers join forces with StepFun to counter Nvidia's return to China". TechNode. 29 July 2025. Retrieved 1 January 2026.
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