Chinese artificial intelligence models now account for the majority of tokens processed by U.S. firms on OpenRouter, overtaking American rivals for the first time as developers increasingly adopt offerings from companies such as DeepSeek.

Chinese Models Gain Majority Share

According to data shared by The Kobeissi Letter on X on Sunday, Chinese AI models accounted for a record 58% of tokens processed by U.S. firms on the platform.

The share has nearly tripled since mid-January and briefly reached 63% during the first week of July.

At the start of 2025, Chinese models accounted for less than 10% of usage, while U.S. models represented roughly 80%.

OpenRouter allows developers and companies to access and compare AI models from multiple providers, making token usage a closely watched gauge of real-world AI model adoption.

Competition between US and Chinese AI models is heating up:

The proportion of tokens used by US firms that run through Chinese AI models on OpenRouter is up to a record ~58%.

OpenRouter is a platform that allows developers and companies to access and compare AI models from… pic.twitter.com/P43Iw4mbXF

— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) July 19, 2026

DeepSeek And Kimi Lead China’s AI Push

The Kobeissi Letter said DeepSeek has emerged as the most widely used Chinese AI model among U.S. firms in recent months.

This comes as DeepSeek is also reportedly preparing for an initial public offering, with Bloomberg News reporting the Chinese AI startup is targeting an IPO filing as soon as this year.

“Chinese AI models are rapidly gaining market share,” the market commentator added.

Last week, Chinese startup Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K3, a 2.8-trillion-parameter model at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai.

The company said it is the world’s largest open-weight AI model, with early benchmark rankings placing it ahead of several leading U.S. models from Anthropic and OpenAI in some capabilities.

AI Race Sparks Fresh Debate On Chip Demand

The launch of Kimi K3 weighed on semiconductor stocks Friday as investors questioned whether increasingly capable and lower-cost open-weight AI models could reduce the computing power needed to train and deploy advanced AI systems.

David Sacks, who chairs the President’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, called Kimi K3’s benchmark performance “concerning,” while Billionaire investor Bill Ackman chimed in, saying he “agreed.”

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

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