The betting big test is coming, 20 billion smart leader undergoes a dramatic change

Reporter | He Jipai Editor | Chen Xiaoping

Top student boss Dai Wenyuan finally sees profit.

At the end of March, Paradigm Intelligent disclosed its performance, with revenue of 7.13B yuan in 2025, up 35.6%, and an adjusted net profit of 17.84 million yuan, turning profitable for the first time.

However, the overall capital market remains calm. As of April 2, market value is around 20 billion Hong Kong dollars, about one-third of its peak.

Paradigm Intelligent, formerly known as “Fourth Paradigm,” was founded by Dai Wenyuan, a top student from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, originally focused on vertical enterprise software models.

The booming large models have impacted Dai’s original architecture.

Over the past year, he led the company’s rebranding and radical reforms, rebuilding the AI Platform, API, and Agentic AI as the “three pillars”, attempting to integrate Chinese chips, models, computing power, and even energy, to drive a new round of growth.

Dai Wenyuan’s AI 2.0 new narrative is grand and filled with uncertainty.

Targeting the gaps

Paradigm Intelligent rebranded, and Dai Wenyuan specifically re-listed the financial statements.

The newly established three main businesses all have high AI concentration—focusing on PaaS with AI Platform, API business based on Token logic, and pay-per-result Agentic AI, each with its own focus and mutual empowerment.

Among them, AI platform business contributes over 90% of total revenue, which Dai regards as the ballast and power source.

Simply put, based on the traditional AI platform, it integrates three new products (ModelHub XC, HAMi vGPU, PhanthyCloud), achieving an end-to-end, full-stack matrix, mostly delivered in the form of software-hardware integrated machines.

Dai Wenyuan’s goal is to address one thing: bridging the gap between computing power, models, and applications.

Deployed models are incompatible with underlying chip architectures, and the hardware purchased lacks a sufficiently adapted model ecosystem. Different models often require separate adaptation, which is time-consuming and repetitive, becoming a bottleneck for AI application explosion.

According to an industry veteran working on large models, many domestic computing power brands exist, but maintaining model compatibility and ensuring domestically produced adaptation is a tough job.

“Currently, there’s no particularly good solution,” he lamented. “Policy guidance is needed for everyone to be compatible; otherwise, device costs for software companies become too high.”

Where there is pain, there is demand.

Dai Wenyuan’s idea is to build an intelligent base, bringing together model manufacturers like Kimi and Qianwen, chip makers like Cambrian, and core clients such as central and state-owned enterprises and financial institutions, to align their needs.

On the left, based on ModelHub XC, creating the largest domestic trust-based model community to improve model adaptation speed; on the right, using HAMi vGPU, enabling fine-grained scheduling of GPU computing power, like a CPU.

Above both, PhanthyCloud provides cloud support and links with Token services, allowing clients to use tokens to call cloud, models, and computing power on demand.

Paradigm has transformed into a “connector” for domestic computing power.

Dai Wenyuan’s new computing power business is performing strongly, contributing 6.55B yuan in revenue in 2025, up 32%. The unexpectedly rapid growth has greatly boosted his confidence.

When ModelHub XC was first released, the community model count was zero; by mid to late January, it exceeded 10k, with an initial plan to reach 100k within a year, which was achieved ahead of schedule.

Dai Wenyuan is ambitious, aiming to catch up with Hugging Face, the current largest AI open-source community globally, by 2027.

Paid growth

After establishing the AI Platform infrastructure, Dai Wenyuan is also working on developing more incremental businesses.

First, he plans to build a traffic pool around the API business to expand the Token payment model.

The main products attracting traffic are three: Phanthy Pantheon, upgraded from Paradigm’s model development platform; PhanRouter, a unified API gateway for large models; and PhanClaw, responsible for Token security and permission control.

The core is Phanthy Pantheon, mainly for B-end Token payments, also supporting C-end operations, deeply integrating PhanthyCloud’s cloud services, over 30k compatible models from ModelHub XC, and covering over a hundred million consumer electronics terminals.

The core idea of Pantheon is to combine generative AI with a systematic world model.

If compared to a hospital, generative AI is like the registration and triage system, responsible for understanding needs and coordinating processes; the world model is like a specialist doctor, analyzing and making decisions. Together, they turn complex tasks into “deliverables.”

Based on products like Pantheon, monetization of API services relies on Token “pay-as-you-go,” with revenue still limited—only 79.9 million yuan in 2025, accounting for just 1.1%, but with a growth rate of 129.2%.

The explosion of Token consumption driven by intelligent agents makes the API sector highly flexible; Dai Wenyuan’s Token revenue for January-March 2026 alone has already surpassed the total for all of 2025.

In Dai Wenyuan’s design, if the AI platform is the base, the API is the access point, and Agentic AI is the “spear” penetrating industry pain points.

This sector, the Paradigm team builds agents to directly deliver business results, mainly adopting a “pay-for-results” model.

For example, in wind power and photovoltaic energy scenarios, they can help clients increase power generation revenue and reduce deviation assessment costs through precise output prediction and trading strategy optimization.

Dai Wenyuan hopes this sector can spawn more “AI + X” solutions, gradually applying to multiple industry scenarios.

From “cloud” to “computation”, he realizes that collaboration is essential.

He led Paradigm’s investment in domestic GPU manufacturer Xiwang, acquiring over 9% of shares; through invested funds, he also invested in another domestic GPU company, Tianshu Zhixin.

At the end of January, he appeared at Xiwang’s launch event, jointly announcing the “One million tokens for one cent” inference cost plan with co-CEO Wang Zhan.

A new narrative

43-year-old Dai Wenyuan, with a top university background and experience in large companies, has been a competitive player since childhood.

“I participated in many competitions from a young age… gradually training myself to be calm in the arena,” he said.

He deeply understands how to reflect and surpass himself.

At the end of February, Dai issued an announcement emphasizing that only 16.1% of revenue came from software services, “core main business is centered on computing power.” The enterprise service sector (4Paradigm), which he started, has faded into a sub-business.

He believes that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) architecture should be split into two parts: AI Agent and world model.

AI Agent handles human interaction, while the world model understands the laws of the world’s operation and solves ultimate problems.

Dai Wenyuan believes that gathering all related capabilities will form the foundation for achieving AGI, with “AI Agent + world model” as the core path of technological evolution.

For example, in its consumer electronics sector “Paradigm Navigation,” the focus is on wearable devices, based on integrated hardware and software, starting from the AI Agent at the edge.

It can provide clients with edge AI general modules, with the appearance and details of terminal products customizable by clients, while hardware configuration and AI algorithms are defined and optimized by Paradigm.

In 2025, the number of edge AI modules supplied to Lenovo exceeded 1 million units.

At the end of January 2026, Dai Wenyuan announced that the brand system and strategic architecture had been upgraded. With this grand new narrative, he is also heading “back to A-shares.”

In late March, Paradigm Intelligent announced it had completed listing counseling registration, planning to go public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The Hong Kong IPO prospectus shows that in September 2023, Dai Wenyuan and institutions like Boyu Jingtai signed a bet agreement.

The agreement states that Paradigm must complete an A-share listing before September 28, 2026, with a valuation of no less than $7.5 billion—roughly three times its current market value—and the A-share issuance scale must be at least 10% of the total post-issue shares.

If not achieved, investors have the right to require Dai personally to buy back his domestic shares, without using company funds.

The window is closing; telling a good AI story, time waits for no one.

Image source: Paradigm Intelligent, except where noted