Chinese AI models gain users but trail U.S. rivals in revenue

Chinese artificial intelligence companies are rapidly gaining users with lower-cost and open-weight models, but their combined revenue remains a fraction of that generated by leading U.S. rivals OpenAI and Anthropic. According to estimates from research firm Rhodium Group, all major Chinese AI models together generate roughly one-tenth the annual recurring revenue of the two U.S. companies. Rhodium Group estimated OpenAI's annual recurring revenue at $40 billion and Anthropic's at $65 billion, for a combined total of approximately $105 billion. In contrast, the combined annual recurring revenue for China's leading AI models was estimated at about $10.7 billion based on the latest available data from this summer. Among Chinese companies, ByteDance had the highest estimated annual recurring revenue at $4 billion, followed by Alibaba at $2.4 billion. Z.ai, formerly known as Zhipu AI, told investors its annual recurring revenue had reached $1.8 billion and raised its year-end target by 25% to $3 billion after securing a $5 billion cash injection. Moonshot AI was estimated at $1 billion, MiniMax at $800 million, and DeepSeek at $500 million.