Zhipu AI's open-weight GLM-5.2 matches Anthropic's Mythos on some bug-finding tasks, raising U.S. national security concerns.

China’s Zhipu AI, operating under the brand Z.ai, has released GLM-5.2, an open-weight large language model that some researchers say matches Anthropic’s Mythos in certain bug-finding and cybersecurity scenarios, according to reporting by The Verge. [1]

The model still lags behind offerings from Anthropic and OpenAI on more general tasks, but the narrowing of the gap in cybersecurity-specific capabilities has drawn attention from U.S. officials. [1]

Because GLM-5.2 is an open-weight model — meaning its underlying parameters are publicly available and can be downloaded and run locally — it can be operated by anyone on readily available hardware. [1] That openness gives developers and power users deep access and flexibility, but it also means the model can be run with little oversight, raising concerns about potential misuse by bad actors. [1]

The Trump administration has been working to restrict China’s access to advanced U.S. AI models, including Anthropic’s Mythos and Fable, as well as the specialized hardware required to train and run them. [1] The administration views models capable of identifying software vulnerabilities as serious national security threats. [1]

Separately, OpenAI recently unveiled GPT-5.6, which has also prompted concerns about misuse potential, leading to limited access to that model. [1]