Chinese AI models in 2026 have pushed enterprise usage on major developer platforms to more than half. CNBC reported on Friday that Chinese models are rapidly increasing adoption by global companies on the back of better performance and lower prices.

On OpenRouter, Chinese models accounted for 57 to 67 percent of total token usage for the week that included Sept. 14. That marks a sharp rise from 6 to 13 percent in February. On Vercel, the share of Chinese models rose to 55 percent in August from 11 percent in January.

Top U.S. models still lead on most benchmarks. DeepSeek, Z.ai and Alibaba have released new models that significantly improve performance in tasks such as coding.

Peter Walker (피터 워커), head of OpenRouter Insights, said Chinese open-source models released this year have reached a level where they can handle advanced agent-type use cases, particularly in coding. He said Chinese models are also more cost-efficient than many models from U.S. AI labs.

Price is cited as a key factor behind the spread. Harpreet Arora (하프리트 아로라), head of agent infrastructure at Vercel, said Chinese models have improved enough to handle more work at lower cost, and once they clear quality thresholds needed for business, the price gap becomes a strong deciding factor. He added that for more complex tasks, companies still want cutting-edge U.S. models.

The spread of Chinese AI is also heightening concerns in Washington. Two U.S. House committees are investigating the impact of wider adoption of Chinese models. The United States has restricted Chinese AI companies from buying cutting-edge chips through export controls, but Washington is concerned they may narrow the gap by remotely accessing Nvidia chips through overseas data centres or using distillation methods that mimic existing models.

Based on OpenRouter, the most notable recent growth in use of Chinese models was in a group of countries the company classifies as the Global South. Companies in 82 countries in Central and South America, Africa and Asia used Chinese models for 67 percent of their tokens. About half of tokens used on OpenRouter were accounted for by U.S. companies. Daniel R. Lemer (대니얼 렘러), a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), said Southeast Asia could see a sharp rise in adoption of Chinese AI models, based on its economic and cultural links with China and expanding digital infrastructure.