Chinese AI models regularly pass 30% of traffic on OpenRouter as US st

US companies are increasingly adopting Chinese AI models, which run 60% to 90% cheaper than OpenAI and Anthropic models. On the aggregator platform OpenRouter, Chinese models have regularly accounted for over 30% of weekly traffic since February 8, occasionally peaking at 46%, compared to an average of 11% last year.

Startups are migrating to Chinese solutions to save millions of dollars. For instance, Lindy CEO Flo Crivello revealed that shifting all traffic from Claude to DeepSeek resulted in massive financial savings.

The cost gap is driving adoption even though Chinese models currently trail US leaders in performance. Kyle Chan of the Brookings Institution and the Center for AI Standards and Innovation estimate that Chinese AI models lag behind US models by six to nine months.