How Chinese AI companies make money and why open weights limit their pricing power
AIChinese AI companies earn about 10% of the combined AI-related revenue of OpenAI and Anthropic, according to Epoch AI as of September 2026. Their main income streams are consumer apps, API access, enterprise and government deployments, licensing fees, and AI-complemented businesses such as cloud and advertising. Releasing model weights lets third-party hosts compete on price, which weakens API margins for model-focused firms like Z.ai and DeepSeek.
Why it matters: The piece maps how Chinese AI firms earn revenue and why open-weight releases weaken API pricing, giving context for comparing them with US frontier labs.