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Chong Ming Lee

Chinese artificial intelligence models from seven major developers combined generate only about 10 per cent of the revenue reported for OpenAI and Anthropic, even as investor enthusiasm remains intense, according to US-based research firm Rhodium Group.
The Chinese AI models earned an estimated US$10.7 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) from March to August, a fraction of the more than US$100 billion combined for OpenAI and Anthropic, according to the Rhodium report published on Thursday.
The report covers DeepSeek, Moonshot AI, Z.ai, MiniMax, Alibaba Group Holding, ByteDance and Kuaishou Technology, which runs the Kling AI video generator.
ARR, a widely used measure for fast-growing companies, projects current monthly subscription income over a 12-month period.
ByteDance led the Chinese group in ARR at US$4 billion as of July, followed by Alibaba at US$2.4 billion in August. By comparison, OpenAI reached US$40 billion in August and Anthropic was at US$65 billion in July.

DeepSeek and Kling had the lowest ARR among the major Chinese AI companies tracked by Rhodium, at US$500 million each as of June and March, respectively. They were followed by MiniMax at US$800 million and Moonshot at US$1 billion, both as of August.
Executives at Z.ai, also known as Zhipu AI, told investors on Wednesday that the company’s ARR had reached US$1.8 billion. The report stated that Z.ai’s ARR from its API business was US$1.6 billion in August.
Despite the gap, investors have continued to pile into Chinese AI companies. Rhodium said their valuations remained “substantially lower” than those of OpenAI and Anthropic, and some looked far more expensive relative to revenue.
Moonshot has been undergoing a funding round that could value it at roughly US$50 billion and has filed confidentially for a Hong Kong initial public offering (IPO), while DeepSeek was also nearing the completion of a pre-IPO funding round valuing it at about 500 billion yuan (US$74 billion), the South China Morning Post reported previously.
Meanwhile, Anthropic was expected to go public later this year with a targeted valuation of around US$2 trillion, according to media reports. OpenAI had discussed a new funding round that would value it at about US$1.2 trillion, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.
“Valuations relative to revenue appear exorbitant for Moonshot and DeepSeek at present,” the Rhodium report said. Their estimated valuation-to-ARR multiples stood at 50 times and 163 times, respectively, compared with 34 times for OpenAI and 21 times for Anthropic.
The numbers underscore a central challenge for China’s AI industry: how to turn AI models into sustainable businesses while spending heavily to keep pace at the technological frontier.
Revenues for these Chinese AI companies have grown rapidly. Z.ai recorded a 400 per cent increase year on year in first-half revenue to 953.9 million yuan, while MiniMax’s revenue surged 283 per cent to US$116.6 million during the same period.
Still, Z.ai and MiniMax, both listed in Hong Kong, could remain loss-making through 2030 due to spending required for computing power, Macquarie Group’s head of Asia internet and software research Ellie Jiang told the SCMP last week. Investors have so far been willing to tolerate those losses while AI adoption remains at an early stage, she said.

The findings come as Chinese developers have rapidly narrowed the performance gap with their US counterparts while competing aggressively on price and embracing open-source and open-weight models.
However, the open-weight strategy has made Chinese models harder to monetise, Rhodium said. Third-party cloud providers can deploy open-weight models and sell access without paying the original developer.
“This could be changing, as Moonshot and Alibaba are pushing for revenue-sharing agreements with major users of their open-weight models,” Rhodium said. For example, Moonshot was in discussions with Microsoft, Amazon and Google, with its potential share of revenue reaching as much as 30 per cent, Reuters reported last month.
Alibaba owns the SCMP.


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ByteDance led the Chinese group in ARR at US$4 billion as of July, followed by Alibaba at US$2.4 billion in August, Rhodium Group found


ByteDance led the Chinese group in ARR at US$4 billion as of July, followed by Alibaba at US$2.4 billion in August, Rhodium Group found.


Top Chinese AI models make 10% of OpenAI, Anthropic revenue despite high valuations: report

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}ByteDance led the Chinese group in ARR at US$4 billion as of July, followed by Alibaba at US$2.4 billion in August, Rhodium Group found

ByteDance led the Chinese group in ARR at US$4 billion as of July, followed by Alibaba at US$2.4 billion in August, Rhodium Group found