Forbes: US Data Vendors Sold ~$500M/Year of Training Data to Tencent, Alibaba and ByteDance
Justgototheeffinmoon · reddit · 2026-08-09
US vendors supplying training data to OpenAI and Anthropic are simultaneously selling data services to Chinese labs, Forbes reports.
Companies like Surge AI, Mercor, AfterQuery, and Turing sell approximately $500 million worth of training data and services annually to Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance. AfterQuery reportedly pulls over $50M in recurring revenue from Chinese labs, Mercor accounts for about 2% of a $2B run-rate, and Surge AI's CEO has traveled to Beijing to meet lab executives directly. Forbes cites internal documentation and audio, confirming this is an active, large-scale commercial practice.
Related event: Forbes: US Data Firms Sold $500M in Training Data to Chinese Tech(2 posts)→
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