Chinese AI models are attracting US companies with lower prices

Chinese AI models are estimated to have accounted for more than 30% of the tokens used by US companies since February.

US companies are increasingly opting for Chinese AI models from firms such as Deepseek and Z.ai, CNBC reports. A key reason is that they offer performance comparable to that of leading US models but at a significantly lower cost.

According to the development platform Openrouter, Chinese models have accounted for over 30% of the AI tokens used by US companies each week since February. In some weeks, the share has been as high as 46%, compared to an average of 11% over the previous 12 months.

Companies are reportedly increasingly choosing open AI models for tasks that do not require the highest performance. According to Openrouter, Chinese models can be between 60% and 90% cheaper than comparable alternatives from OpenAI and Anthropic.