Rising costs and the improving performance of Chinese open-weight models has led Chinese start-ups to overtake US rivals on worldwide token use

Lower costs and strong performance are prompting companies to experiment with Chinese AI models, even as security concerns persist.

Chinese AI models now account for most tokens processed by U.S. firms on OpenRouter, overtaking American rivals as DeepSeek gains traction.

Rising costs and the improving performance of Chinese open-weight models has led Chinese start-ups to overtake US rivals on worldwide token use

Chinese AI models challenge U.S. dominance. Alibaba's best AI model by August 2026 at 0.4% YES, while Anthropic leads at 90.5% YES.