China's AI models are reaching a critical point of intelligence performance vs. global proprietary models, with a significant ramp up in domestic enterprise and global SME adoption that will enable a positive data flywheel of further model improvement.

Recent model releases from Chinese companies including DeepSeek and Z.ai are seen by many as highly competitive compared to leading U.S. frontier systems.

Chinese AI models are gaining ground with US companies because they cost far less than systems from OpenAI and Anthropic, CNBC reports.