Western open-weight models still can't beat China on capability and cost

Chinese open-weight AI models outperform Western rivals on capability and cost, experts said at a Rest of World event in San Francisco. New open-weight models from Reflection, Aleph Alpha and Mistral fall short of dominant Chinese systems despite greater resources. US chip restrictions forced Chinese developers to build leaner, more efficient models.

• Four Chinese models ranked in OpenRouter's top five: DeepSeek, Z.ai, Xiaomi and Tencent
• Top Chinese models lag US rivals by just 3% on benchmark scores
• Nvidia chip restrictions pushed Chinese firms to build more efficient models
• Reflection, Aleph Alpha and Mistral released open-weight models but trail Chinese ones