Chinese AI models expand US adoption despite scrutiny

Chinese artificial intelligence models are gaining significant traction among American users and businesses, drawn by their lower cost and improving performance. This trend is unfolding despite heightened U.S. government scrutiny and accusations of intellectual property infringement, marking a new phase in the global AI competition.

The shift is exemplified by figures like Raffi Krikorian, chief technology officer at Mozilla, who adopted the Chinese model Kimi K3 for daily tasks soon after its launch in July, describing it as "snappier" than more expensive American alternatives. He had previously used another Chinese model, Z.ai's GLM5.2. U.S. companies, including cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase, are also reportedly switching to Chinese AI to reduce costs. Data from the platform OpenRouter indicates the five most popular AI models over the past month were all Chinese, with Kimi experiencing a surge of over 930,000 global downloads in the week after K3's release, including roughly 86,000 in the United States.

The appeal is rooted in affordability for what many users deem "good enough" performance. Curt Meinhold, a North Carolina-based technology executive, said he increasingly...