Are Chinese models secretly routed to Claude? Author argues cost and reproducibility say no

op7418 · x · 2026-09-11

Responding to rumors that Chinese models secretly route to Claude, the author argues it's unlikely: open-source models require reproducible eval results, and the cost of calling Claude wouldn't be sustainable.

A likelier explanation: relay/proxy services labeling requests as Claude while actually routing to Kimi or DeepSeek with a small mix of Claude output.

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