One year after DeepSeek, Chinese AI firms from Alibaba to Moonshot race to release new models
BEIJING — Chinese companies are accelerating the rollout of new artificial intelligence models as competition from U.S.-based rivals OpenAI, Anthropic and Google intensifies.
Just over a year ago, China-made DeepSeek shook up global markets with the launch of an AI chatbot that undercut OpenAI’s ChatGPT on usage fees and production costs, raising questions about the effectiveness of US technology restrictions on China.
On Tuesday, Beijing-based startup Moonshot AI unveiled Kimi K2.5, which claims to have video rendering and mediation capabilities that outperform all three of the leading US AI models. Agency AI generally refers to artificial intelligence systems that can perform tasks on behalf of humans. The ultimate goal is to have advanced agents operating autonomously with minimal user interaction.
The update comes nearly three months after Moonshot launched its K2 model.
Hours ago, e-commerce giant Alibaba’s announced its newest generative artificial intelligence model that can create text, images or video according to user commands. Alibaba claims Qwen3-Max-Thinking It outperformed major U.S. rivals in a wide-ranging benchmark test called “Humanity’s Final Test.”
Alibaba said the new model can automatically choose the best AI tool for a set of tasks and leverage past conversations as context to more efficiently craft new responses, all at little additional cost.
A week ago, on January 19, Z.ai published a post. free version of the recently released GLM 4.7 model. Two days later, the company restricts new subscribers from signing up to its AI coding tool upon request strained available computing power.
Also shares traded in Hong Kong last week Chinese technology giant Baidu It climbed to its highest level in nearly three years after the launch of the latest generative AI model. Ernie 5.0. The company claimed that the update outperformed Google Gemini-2.5-Pro but did not compare it to Google DeepMind’s latest update. Gemini 3 Pro.
Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis told CNBC this month that China’s AI models may be just “months” behind those developed in the United States
Trying other ways to compete
Beyond bringing it to market, Chinese companies are encouraging the adoption of domestic technologies by making them more affordable for developing economies.
Unlike many leading AI models developed by the US, those from China are generally is open source, often allowing free or low-cost access and the ability to customize the underlying code of the model.
“The hope is that countries outside of China will use these models to enable large amounts of applications to be built on these Chinese models,” said Alex Lu, founder of LSY Consulting. “This is a way for Chinese companies to enter the market.”
There are indications that the trend is already occurring. Microsoft noted the following predictions earlier this month: DeepSeek usage in Africa is two to four times higher than in other regions.
Paying too much attention to AI benchmarks distracts from the technology’s true value when integrated into existing gaming or entertainment ecosystems. Tencent’sIvan Su, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note.
The Chinese tech giant operates the ubiquitous WeChat messaging app, as well as other popular gaming and video streaming apps in China.
Tencent announced on Sunday that it would do so. Distribute 1 billion yuan ($140 million) Cash prizes via Yuanbao AI chatbot app during the Lunar New Year festival in February. The promotion mimics previous “red envelope” campaigns that helped WeChat has become one of the two dominant mobile payment applications a little over ten years ago. It is customary for families to give cash in small red envelopes to their relatives during holidays.
ByteDance and Baidu are also running AI-related promotions during the upcoming holiday season to keep users on AI apps.
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Earlier this month, Alibaba updated its Qwen AI app to encourage users who interact with the chatbot to shop, order food, and pay without leaving the app, thanks to integration with the company’s existing e-commerce platforms such as Taobao. Qwen claims to have over 100 million monthly active users.
Lu said that this integration could generate more revenue for Alibaba, assuming that as more people use Qwen, they will use and shop on Taobao more. This will help cover the costs of developing and operating the underlying AI model, he said.
He said Chinese companies mostly compete for user traffic rather than developing the most advanced models.
