Chinese models seized 46% of OpenRouter traffic as cost gap widens
chinese models account for over 30% of openrouter traffic weekly, up from 11%, as startups like lindy switch from claude to deepseek to save millions.
chinese ai models from deepseek and z.ai have surged on openrouter, consistently exceeding 30% of weekly traffic since february and hitting 46% peaks, compared to an 11% average in 2023. openrouter reports these open-source models run 60-90% cheaper than us alternatives, prompting startups like lindy to migrate entire workloads from claude to deepseek. despite chinese models trailing us leaders by 6-9 months in benchmarks, the massive price arbitrage is driving adoption. this trend signals that enterprise buyers are prioritizing cost efficiency over marginal capability gains.