China’s AI Companies Are Winning Over Developers With Cheaper Models. Silicon Valley’s Biggest Advantage Is Facing New Pressure.

The competition between the United States and China in artificial intelligence is increasingly extending beyond who builds the most advanced models and into a broader contest over price, accessibility and adoption. Chinese companies have gained significant traction in recent months by releasing open-weight AI models that can be downloaded, customized and operated on private infrastructure. The trend has accelerated as businesses seek lower-cost alternatives for routine tasks such as coding, summarization, customer support and data extraction. Several Chinese models currently occupy the top positions on OpenRouter, a marketplace that allows developers to access and compare hundreds of AI systems. Tencent,…