ai
Chinese Models Lead OpenRouter Weekly Token Usage Rankings
Axios reported that models from Tencent, Xiaomi, DeepSeek, MiniMax and Z.ai now lead weekly token usage rankings on the OpenRouter marketplace. Moonshot AI released Kimi K3 this week, matching U.S. frontier models on benchmarks. American labs responded with new open-weight releases.
Jul 18, 8:46 AM·1m read1 source
Audio version
Tap play to generate a narrated version.
Developing·Limited corroboration so far. This page will refresh as more sources emerge.
Chinese models from Tencent, Xiaomi, DeepSeek, MiniMax and Z.ai occupy the top five positions by weekly token usage on OpenRouter, Axios reported. All five are open-weight systems that developers can download, customize and run locally. Moonshot AI released Kimi K3 this week.
The model matches Anthropic's Fable and OpenAI's GPT-5.6 on key benchmarks. Its arrival came ten weeks after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in May that China remained six to 12 months behind the U.S. in the most dangerous cyber capabilities.
An AI investor told Axios that cheaper models handle routine tasks at up to 50 times lower cost than premium systems. Most corporate work does not require the smartest available model, the investor added. Thinking Machines, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, debuted this week with an open-weight model built for deep customization.
Nvidia expanded its Nemotron family of open models. SpaceXAI open-sourced Grok Build, the software behind its coding agent. OpenAI and Anthropic are preparing for IPOs whose valuations rest on frontier models remaining scarce and lucrative.
Mozilla's Krikorian said U.S. labs are terrified of Chinese competitors.
