{"id":43343,"date":"2026-08-11T23:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T15:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/?p=43343"},"modified":"2026-08-12T11:18:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T03:18:25","slug":"chinese-ai-models-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"How cheap are Chinese AI models cost?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_86 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #ffffff;color:#ffffff\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #ffffff;color:#ffffff\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/#Chinese_AI_models_cost_60-90_Less_Than_US\" >Chinese AI models cost 60-90% Less Than US<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/#Chiese_is_cheaper_and_very_close_to_top_US_models\" >Chiese is cheaper and very close to top US models<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/#Cost_Difference_and_Current_Market_Price_Advantage\" >Cost Difference and Current Market Price Advantage<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/#Reasons_of_the_Cost_Gap\" >Reasons of the Cost Gap<\/a><ul class='ez-toc-list-level-3' ><li class='ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/#Chinas_AI_model_usage_far_surpasses_US_globally\" >China&#8217;s AI model usage far surpasses US globally<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/#Conclusion\" >Conclusion<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-7\" href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/#Related_articles\" >Related articles<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Chinese_AI_models_cost_60-90_Less_Than_US\"><\/span>Chinese AI models cost 60-90% Less Than US<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Chiese_is_cheaper_and_very_close_to_top_US_models\"><\/span>Chiese is cheaper and very close to top US models<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>On Arena.ai&#8217;s front-end capability rankings, KimiK3 ranked first, and GLM-5.2 ranked fourth, surpassing the previous world&#8217;s strongest models, Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 Sol. The &#8220;Zhipu&#8221; model&#8217;s ranking as number one globally shocked Silicon Valley, with Zhipu&#8217;s stock price surging over 40% intraday on June 22, 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.deeplearning.ai\/the-batch\/kimi-k3-reveals-how-a-giant-frontier-ai-model-works\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Kimi K3 model&#8217;s capabilities are comparable to ChatGPT 5.6 and Claude Fable 5. On Arena.ai&#8217;s front-end capability rankings, KimiK3 ranked first, and GLM-5.2 ranked fourth, surpassing the previous world&#8217;s strongest models, Fable 5 and GPT 5.6 Sol.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The president of OpenAI stated that Kimi K3 is &#8220;quite good,&#8221; believing that Chinese models may only lag behind the US by four months. Anthropic indicated that the US may only have about six to nine months left to lead China in AI models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May 2026, for the first time in history! Alibaba&#8217;s Qwen 3.7-Max model has broken into the top four of the global programming rankings, with the top three being Anthropic&#8217;s Claude models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Cost_Difference_and_Current_Market_Price_Advantage\"><\/span>Cost Difference and Current Market Price Advantage<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/2026\/07\/26\/china-moonshot-deepseek-zai-kimi-challenging-us-ai-cost\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">According to OpenRouter data analysis, the API and usage costs of models from mainland China are significantly lower than those of mainstream Western models. For example, the newly released Chinese model Kimi-K3 performs exceptionally well in multiple tasks, with its cost being only about one-third of similar models from Anthropic.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/deepseek-v4-flash-cheapest-ai-model-benchmark-080326\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Data from independent testing organization Artificial Analysis is even more striking: processing complex real-world workloads with DeepSeek V4 Flash costs only $0.03, while using Claude Fable 5 costs $3.15, a difference of more than a hundred times.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Reasons_of_the_Cost_Gap\"><\/span>Reasons of the Cost Gap<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Top US AI labs (such as Anthropic, which spends huge sums monthly on rented computing power) face enormous infrastructure and R&amp;D expenditures; in contrast, Chinese models often employ open weight strategies and benefit from infrastructure support, significantly reducing the price of end-user APIs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Chinas_AI_model_usage_far_surpasses_US_globally\"><\/span>China&#8217;s AI model usage far surpasses US globally<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the latest data from the AI \u200b\u200bmodel service platform OpenRouter, the weekly usage of Chinese AI large-scale models reached 33 trillion tokens last week, 14.1 times that of US models during the same period. This marks the 13th consecutive week that China has surpassed the US, firmly holding the top spot globally. Among them, the Xiaomi MiMo-V2.5 model has risen to first place globally in weekly usage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last week, the top five most used AI models globally were all Chinese models.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Conclusion\"><\/span>Conclusion<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Based on currently available market prices and industry consensus, the cost of AI models in China is at least one-tenth to one-sixtieth of the cost of similar AI models in the United States, or even lower.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"138\" height=\"90\" src=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/09\/AI_model_Cost-Custom.jpg\" alt=\"Chinese AI models cost\n\" class=\"wp-image-43345\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Related_articles\"><\/span>Related articles<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/08\/11\/chinese-ai-models-cost\/\">How cheap are Chinese AI models cost?<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/07\/27\/open-weights-models\/\">Pros and cons of Open Weights, Open, and Closed AI models, and top vendors&#8221;<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2023\/04\/03\/openai-and-chatgpt\/\">OpenAI, the Generative Artificial Intelligence rising star and ChatGPT<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2026\/07\/20\/king-of-ai-alphabet-google\/\">The king of AI Alphabet (Google) <\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2025\/10\/22\/investing-in-alphabet\/\">The pros and cons of investing in Alphabet amid AI evolution<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2025\/02\/08\/deepseek-rout\/\">DeepSeek routed the global AI and stock<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2025\/02\/12\/chinese-ai-companies\/\">Chinese AI progress and top companies<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2025\/05\/31\/chinese-tech-singularity\/\">Chinese tech singularity or just a flash in the pan? From DeepSeek, Huawei, TikTok, to Game Science<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2024\/06\/14\/small-language-models\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Importance of Small Language Models (SLM) in AI, how is Apple AI different from others?<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2025\/08\/30\/china-ditch-us-ai-chip\/\">China ditch US AI chips and decides to go its own way<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2025\/08\/24\/ai-inference-chips\/\">AI inference chips vs. training chips<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/2024\/12\/22\/comparison-gpu-and-asic\/\">Comparison of AI chips GPU and ASIC<\/a>&#8220;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><em><strong>Disclaimer<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><em>The content of this site is the author\u2019s personal opinions and is for reference only. I am not responsible for the correctness, opinions, and immediacy of the content and information of the article. Readers must make their own judgments.<\/em><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>I shall not be liable for any damages or other legal liabilities for the direct or indirect losses caused by the readers&#8217; direct or indirect reliance on and reference to the information on this site, or all the responsibilities arising therefrom, as a result of any investment behavior.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Based on currently publicly disclosed market prices and industry consensus, the Chinese AI models cost is at least one-tenth, or even less, of the cost of similar AI models in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-software"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43343"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43381,"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43343\/revisions\/43381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.granitefirm.com\/blog\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}