American developers are accelerating the adoption of Chinese AI models to cut costs, but face challenges in revenue conversion

According to Rest of World, in order to significantly reduce operating costs, American developers and startups are accelerating the adoption of Chinese AI models such as DeepSeek, Minimax, and Kimi. Due to their high cost-effectiveness in handling common tasks like code writing, the market share of Chinese AI models is rapidly increasing. Data shows that in May, the Token usage share of DeepSeek on the service provider Vercel platform surged from less than 1% to 17%. Additionally, it is reported that Microsoft is also exploring the use of DeepSeek or other open-source models as a low-cost alternative for Copilot.

However, despite the popularity of Chinese AI models in the market due to their price advantage, many American companies and developers choose to access these models indirectly through local servers or American cloud service providers, constrained by domestic political scrutiny and data security concerns. This has led to Chinese AI companies facing high usage rates while still struggling to effectively convert traffic into substantial direct revenue and long-term enterprise-level customer trust in the U.S. market.