AI race splits in two as China wages open-weight insurgency

The AI race is splitting as Chinese labs, including Moonshot AI, deploy an open-weight insurgency. By offering cheap, customizable intelligence, these firms threaten to turn American prestige models into expensive niche products. This shift is evident on OpenRouter, where Chinese models now occupy the top five spots for weekly token usage. The emergence of Kimi K3 further accelerates the trend of developers moving away from premium systems toward more affordable Chinese alternatives.