Rhodium: OpenAI and Anthropic Earn 10x All Chinese AI Models Combined

A new Rhodium Group study (reported by CNBC) shows that the combined annual recurring revenue (ARR) of OpenAI and Anthropic, the two leading US companies, is roughly 10 times that of all Chinese AI model vendors combined, highlighting the huge commercialization gap between leading US and Chinese AI companies.

Confirmed

Revenue figures: OpenAI's ARR is about $40 billion and Anthropic's about $65 billion; ByteDance's large-model business is around $4 billion, and Alibaba's Bailian MaaS about $2.3–2.4 billion (Rhodium data, as reported by CNBC).
@rohanpaulai relayed Rhodium's view: China's real AI challenge has shifted from compute to monetization — even though China's AI infrastructure spending is set to double this year to $139 billion, the gap between capital expenditure and revenue keeps widening.
Valuation multiples: Rhodium says Chinese frontier model companies are being priced at far higher revenue multiples than their US peers; on a valuation/ARR basis, Moonshot is at roughly 167x and DeepSeek at about 163x, versus only about 34x for OpenAI.

Why it matters

The imbalance between revenue and capital spending means the sustainability of China's AI business models is being tested — whether massive infrastructure investment can translate into revenue is the key variable.
High valuation multiples reflect the market's optimistic growth expectations for Chinese model companies, but also carry the risk of a valuation bubble.

2026-09-17 ~ 2026-09-18 · 6 related posts

Primary sources

OpenAI and Anthropic earn 10x more than all Chinese AI models combined, per Rhodium — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-18 01:17 (UTC+08:00)
China's AI monetization gap: all models combined earn ~10% of OpenAI and Anthropic's ARR — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-18 02:38 (UTC+08:00)

CNBC: OpenAI and Anthropic generate roughly 10x the revenue of all Chinese AI models combined — Polymarket · 2026-09-17
[source] OpenAI and Anthropic earn 10x more than all Chinese AI models combined, per Rhodium — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-18
Rhodium: Chinese AI labs priced at 163-167x ARR vs OpenAI's 34x and Anthropic's 21x — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-18
[source] China's AI monetization gap: all models combined earn ~10% of OpenAI and Anthropic's ARR — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-18
China's AI models earn ~10% of OpenAI and Anthropic's ARR even as capex doubles to $139B — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-18

1 near-duplicate retellings: rohanpaul_ai