2025 was the calm before the storm. 2026 is when the storm breaks. The AI game has changed forever. Let me explain.
Let's take a moment to acknowledge what is happening right now：
Qwen-3.8-Max reportedly outperforms GPT-5.6 Sol and trails Fable 5 by only a narrow margin. I know this still needs to be verified， but let's assume for the sake of argument that it is true. If so， it would mean that China has effectively caught up with the United States. Kimi K3 has already demonstrated that the former six to eight month gap behind the leading US frontier labs no longer exists. China continues to embrace open source and open model weights， increasing the competitive pressure on US frontier labs.
-DeepSeek V4 GA is on the verge of release. It is expected to be highly competitive on price， and there is every reason to hope that its performance will improve as well.
-Minimax M3 Pro is also expected soon and will likely perform at a level comparable to Qwen-3.8-Max. That would add yet another open model capable of competing at the very top.
-GLM 5.3 or 5.5 is also expected in the near future. Qwen， GLM， and Kimi are now clearly in a race to see who can ship the strongest models. That makes GLM another potential contender that could move ahead of the US frontier labs and close the remaining gap to Fable 5.
In the United States， the industry is currently waiting for Gemini 3.5 Pro， which has already been delayed multiple times， as well as Opus 5 and Fable 5.1. GPT-6 is also expected in the near future as a new model built on a new pretraining run. The concern， however， is that Opus 5 may underperform relative to expectations！ If open source Chinese models are already ahead of Opus 5 while sitting only slightly behind Fable 5， it raises the question of how Opus 5 is supposed to remain competitive. By definition， it would rank below Fable 5， making it difficult to outperform the latest Chinese models， especially since those are already more attractive from a pricing perspective. So either Opus 5 will be released *after* a Fable 5 update （Fable 5.5） *or* it will effectively underperform compared to Chinese models. Because Opus 5 will not be better than Fable.
2025 was the calm before the storm. 2026 is when the storm breaks. The AI game has changed forever. Let me explain.
Let's take a moment to acknowledge what is happening right now：
Qwen-3.8-Max reportedly outperforms GPT-5.6 Sol and trails Fable 5 by only a narrow margin. I know this still needs to be verified， but let's assume for the sake of argument that it is true. If so， it would mean that China has effectively caught up with the United States. Kimi K3 has already demonstrated that the former six to eight month gap behind the leading US frontier labs no longer exists. China continues to embrace open source and open model weights， increasing the competitive pressure on US frontier labs.
Taken together， the pressure on US frontier labs is increasing dramatically. They are being forced to publish faster， release faster， and accelerate research and development even further. At the same time， tighter US regulation does nothing to make that challenge easier.
I do not think many people fully appreciate how quickly the balance is shifting or how close Chinese frontier labs have come to the state of the art despite ongoing export restrictions and embargoes. On pricing， they are already at least on par with their US counterparts， if not ahead. （Yes， I am aware of the argument that GPT-5.6 is more token-efficient than Kimi K3. At the same time， Kimi K3 is less expensive， which leaves the two models broadly comparable in overall cost.） Meanwhile， the debate over open source is becoming more intense in the United States， whereas China currently has little incentive to abandon open models in favor of closed ones.
The next few weeks are going to be extraordinary. Competitive pressure is forcing an acceleration of development whether anyone wants it or not. We are about to see release after release. Keeping up will become increasingly difficult. Competition will continue to fuel even faster progress. Neither of the two major blocs can afford to fall behind. The rivalry between the United States and China is driving a pace of acceleration unlike anything we have seen before.
2025 was the calm before the storm.
2026 is when the storm breaks.
Chubby♨️Holy, Qwen 3.8 supposedly ahead of GPT-5.6 and only slightly behind Fable 5! - 2.4t Parameters - Open Source / Open Weight - full release soon, already availabl...
-DeepSeek V4 GA is on the verge of release. It is expected to be highly competitive on price， and there is every reason to hope that its performance will improve as well.
-Minimax M3 Pro is also expected soon and will likely perform at a level comparable to Qwen-3.8-Max. That would add yet another open model capable of competing at the very top.
-GLM 5.3 or 5.5 is also expected in the near future. Qwen， GLM， and Kimi are now clearly in a race to see who can ship the strongest models. That makes GLM another potential contender that could move ahead of the US frontier labs and close the remaining gap to Fable 5.
In the United States， the industry is currently waiting for Gemini 3.5 Pro， which has already been delayed multiple times， as well as Opus 5 and Fable 5.1. GPT-6 is also expected in the near future as a new model built on a new pretraining run. The concern， however， is that Opus 5 may underperform relative to expectations！ If open source Chinese models are already ahead of Opus 5 while sitting only slightly behind Fable 5， it raises the question of how Opus 5 is supposed to remain competitive. By definition， it would rank below Fable 5， making it difficult to outperform the latest Chinese models， especially since those are already more attractive from a pricing perspective. So either Opus 5 will be released *after* a Fable 5 update （Fable 5.5） *or* it will effectively underperform compared to Chinese models. Because Opus 5 will not be better than Fable.
Taken together， the pressure on US frontier labs is increasing dramatically. They are being forced to publish faster， release faster， and accelerate research and development even further. At the same time， tighter US regulation does nothing to make that challenge easier.
I do not think many people fully appreciate how quickly the balance is shifting or how close Chinese frontier labs have come to the state of the art despite ongoing export restrictions and embargoes. On pricing， they are already at least on par with their US counterparts， if not ahead. （Yes， I am aware of the argument that GPT-5.6 is more token-efficient than Kimi K3. At the same time， Kimi K3 is less expensive， which leaves the two models broadly comparable in overall cost.） Meanwhile， the debate over open source is becoming more intense in the United States， whereas China currently has little incentive to abandon open models in favor of closed ones.
The next few weeks are going to be extraordinary. Competitive pressure is forcing an acceleration of development whether anyone wants it or not. We are about to see release after release. Keeping up will become increasingly difficult. Competition will continue to fuel even faster progress. Neither of the two major blocs can afford to fall behind. The rivalry between the United States and China is driving a pace of acceleration unlike anything we have seen before.
2025 was the calm before the storm.
2026 is when the storm breaks.
Chubby♨️Holy, Qwen 3.8 supposedly ahead of GPT-5.6 and only slightly behind Fable 5! - 2.4t Parameters - Open Source / Open Weight - full release soon, already availabl...
