🇨🇳🇺🇸Chinese AI models are up to 50 times cheaper than their American counterparts on a per-token basis.

Especially Qwen, DeepSeek and Kimi, which pressures OpenAI and Anthropic pricing.

• From J.P. Morgan report titled "Semiquincententacles: the US grip on global markets at 250" found that

The report said Chinese firms accounted for over 45% of all traffic on the AI aggregation platform OpenRouter by April 2026, up from under 2%in late 2024.

Some other findings from the report.

• Enterprise AI tokens may become commoditized, because many business tasks do not need frontier models and can run on smaller open models.

• AI has driven 65%-80% of S&P 500 returns, profits and capex since ChatGPT, creating clear signs of investor overexcitement in semiconductors.

• NVIDIA still dominates AI accelerators, but custom chips from Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Meta are gaining because they can cut total cost by 30%-40%.

• China is catching up in AI, with better models, rising GPU self-sufficiency and possible chip-scaling workarounds despite export controls.

• Taiwan is the US AI system’s weak point, because TSMC supports much of the world’s advanced chip supply while Taiwan is highly exposed to energy and food blockades.