China's AI capex hits $140B, still under 1/6 of US big five's $800B
teortaxesTex · x · 2026-09-19
Highlights from a Rhodium Group report: China's AI capex this year is estimated at $140B, versus roughly $800B for the US big five; leading US AI companies generate 10x+ the revenue of leading Chinese AI companies; and Chinese AI firms have substantially lower gross margins despite free-riding on US progress via adversarial distillation. The poster flips the framing: given that American academic research is effectively dead, how much do US models free-ride on Chinese labs' open research? Plenty of open questions remain on US vs Chinese AI business models — revenue sources, addressable markets, and funding structures.
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