Chinese AI models capture most business usage on major developer gateways

Global corporate use of Chinese AI models rose sharply in 2026. On OpenRouter they accounted for 57–67% of tokens in the week of 14 September, up from 6–13% in February; on Vercel their share hit 55% in August versus 11% in January. Firms such as DeepSeek, Z.ai and Alibaba have released stronger models while AI featured in this week’s Trump–Xi meeting. Two U.S. House committees are probing the trend amid chip export controls and worries over remote Nvidia access and distillation.