Chinese AI models are increasingly favored by US companies due to their lower costs compared to systems from OpenAI and Anthropic. On OpenRouter, Chinese models have consistently made up more than 30 percent of traffic since February 8, peaking at 46 percent. This growth has outpaced the average of 11 percent recorded last year. According to OpenRouter employee Justin Summerville, Chinese open-source models run 60 to 90 percent cheaper than their US counterparts. This cost advantage has led some companies to switch entirely to Chinese models, such as Lindy, which shifted all its traffic from Anthropic's Claude to DeepSeek. CEO Flo Crivello stated the switch saves millions in costs. The cost gap between Chinese and US models is estimated to be six to nine months, according to Kyle Chan at the Brookings Institution. This aligns with an estimate from the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), which found Chinese AI models lag behind leading US models by about eight months in areas like cybersecurity, software development, math, science, and abstract reasoning.
Source: thedecoder
