en.Wedoany.com Reported - On June 25, China's Hurun Research Institute released the "2026 Global Unicorn Index," with the world's three most valuable unicorns all involved in large model businesses. US-based Anthropic ranked first with a valuation of 6.6 trillion RMB, US-based OpenAI ranked second with 5.8 trillion RMB, and China's ByteDance ranked third with 3.3 trillion RMB. China's DeepSeek topped the list of 308 newly minted unicorns globally, entering the top 15 global unicorns with a valuation of 340 billion RMB.
This index covers non-listed companies founded after 2000 with a valuation of over $1 billion, with valuations calculated as of January 1, 2026, and updated for significant valuation changes before publication. The global number of unicorns reached 1,603, an increase of 80 from last year, hitting a record high; the total value of global unicorns reached 54 trillion RMB, up 43% year-on-year. This shift indicates that AI platforms, large model applications, fintech, software services, robotics, and life sciences remain the primary drivers of valuation growth for global startups.
US-based Anthropic was one of the biggest changes in this index. Driven by its Claude large model, the company's valuation surged by 6.1 trillion RMB in a single year, making it the world's most valuable unicorn. US-based OpenAI maintained second place, with its ChatGPT ecosystem, enterprise AI services, and model capability expansion continuing to support its valuation. China's ByteDance ranked third, with its AI businesses like Doubao combining with its existing content, advertising, recommendation systems, and global product ecosystem to maintain its position as a top global unicorn.
China's DeepSeek's inclusion is particularly significant as a new entrant. With a valuation of 340 billion RMB, it became the world's top new unicorn and directly entered the global top 15. Unlike traditional consumer internet unicorns, DeepSeek represents a new generation of startups driven by large model foundational capabilities, algorithmic efficiency, model services, and AI engineering systems. Its rapid entry into the high-valuation bracket also indicates a shift in capital markets' assessment of foundational model capabilities and AI-native companies.
The index shows that the US remains the country with the most unicorns globally, with 806 companies accounting for 50.3% of the total; China ranked second with 381, an increase of 38 from last year. China added 80 new unicorns, averaging one every five days, a significantly faster growth rate than the previous year. China's unicorns are mainly concentrated in sectors such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, robotics, life sciences, and new energy, which are highly correlated with hard tech, advanced manufacturing, and digital economy infrastructure.
By industry, global fintech and AI sectors have 216 and 215 unicorns respectively, with similar numbers, but the total value of AI unicorns significantly exceeds that of fintech. In recent years, global unicorn valuations have been more concentrated in payments, consumer platforms, and SaaS software; in this index, the trend of value concentrating in leading AI companies is more pronounced, with the top ten companies alone having a total value of 20.1 trillion RMB, nearly 40% of the entire index's total value.
The structure of Chinese companies in the global unicorn landscape is also changing. Besides China's ByteDance and China's DeepSeek, companies like China's Xiaohongshu, China's DJI, China's OPPO, China's WeBank, China's vivo, and China's miHoYo continue to be part of China's high-value unicorn camp. Unlike the previous wave driven by consumer internet and platform economies, the new batch of Chinese unicorns is more concentrated in AI, robotics, semiconductors, new energy, and advanced manufacturing, with higher technological density and stronger industry chain attributes.
The signals from this index are clear: global unicorn competition is shifting from user scale and platform traffic to competition in model capabilities, computing efficiency, core technologies, industrial applications, and global commercialization capabilities. US-based Anthropic, US-based OpenAI, and China's ByteDance taking the top three spots, with China's DeepSeek becoming the top new unicorn, indicates that AI has become the most important valuation theme in the current global primary market. It remains to be seen whether these high-valuation AI companies can convert model capabilities into stable revenue, enterprise clients, and sustainable business models.
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