Chinese Open-Source Models Expand Presence Abroad, Says FutureX Capital Partner

Chinese AI models are expanding their overseas presence through open-source strategies, with weekly usage on the OpenRouter platform exceeding that of US models for 24 consecutive weeks, according to Cynthia Zhang, founding partner at Hong Kong-based venture capital firm FutureX Capital.

In an interview with Yicai on the sidelines of the FutureChina Global Forum 2026 in Singapore, Zhang said Chinese LLM developers' revenue is growing rapidly even though they are unlikely to match the near-term sales of US giants such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

As the performance gap narrows between Chinese open-source models and leading closed-source ones, application developers including legal AI startup Harvey and multi-model agent platform Genspark are building proprietary models on Chinese open-source technology to cut reliance on overseas closed-source providers, Zhang said. She predicted that closed-source model revenue may decline while open-source revenue rises, with the trend still in its early stages but growing fast.

Zhang also noted that leading US AI models typically enjoy high profitability for about six months before prices fall, and that larger companies increasingly want to control their own AI capabilities rather than rely on another party's ecosystem. She cited California-based AI infrastructure startup Fireworks AI, whose core management team is largely of Chinese descent, as an example of Chinese teams helping deploy open-source LLMs for overseas enterprises; the company has surpassed $1 billion in annualized revenue.

Still, data compliance remains a major hurdle for Chinese AI going global, said Gu Zhaoqin, a partner at Duan & Duan Law Firm. He said the challenges stem both from genuine data security and privacy concerns and geopolitically driven trade protectionism, and that earning global trust requires transparency and security compliance.