China's AI Models: The Definitive LLM Primer

Three weeks ago, we attempted a lengthy answer of the "trillion dollar question" namely are Chinese AI models a better value than US models and, using extensive research from UBS, concluded that at almost 95% of the capability (and rising) and just 10% of the cost, the answer was a resounding yes.

Fast forward to today when Goldman analyst Ronald Keung also addressed the $64 trillion elephant in the room, and published a 50-page China AI models LLM primer (available to pro subs), in which he agrees with our conclusion, namely that "China's AI open-source/open-weight models are reaching a critical point of intelligence performance vs. global proprietary models, with a significant ramp up in domestic enterprise & global SME adoption that will enable a positive data flywheel of further model improvement." 

From DeepSeek’s moment last year (on cost efficiency) to Zhipu’s GLM moment this year (on model intelligence).