Rhodium: OpenAI+Anthropic hit ~$105B combined ARR vs ~$10.7B for all of China's AI labs
r0ck3t23 · x · 2026-09-20
Rhodium Group estimates OpenAI and Anthropic now have roughly $105B in combined annual recurring revenue, versus about $10.7B for all of China's AI model businesses combined.
But the two ecosystems are playing different games:
- US frontier labs excel at converting capability into premium subscriptions, APIs and enterprise products — compounding cash.
- Chinese labs compete on price and push open-weight models that spread widely without returning much revenue — compounding distribution.
Rhodium estimates China's broader AI buildout is only 15-20% of US investment levels, and financing constraints could make continued scaling harder.
Valuation multiples diverge sharply: Moonshot at 50x ARR, DeepSeek at 163x, versus 34x for OpenAI and 21x for Anthropic (private-valuation estimates, not public trading multiples). The author argues revenue shows who captures value today, but says little about whose models get embedded across the most products and infrastructure five years out — both matter.
Related event: Report: US AI Labs Far Outpace Chinese Rivals in Revenue(2 posts)→
More from Venture
- AI assistant startup Town tops The Information's 50 Most Promising Startups at $892M valuation — soleio · 2026-11-12
- OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar says OpenAI has 100 million subscribers — morqon · 2026-11-12
- Polymarket odds put Chinese AI lab at #1 by year-end at just 6% — Polymarket · 2026-11-12
- Rox raises $270M Series B at $1.3B valuation, 12 months after launch — Konstantine · 2026-11-12
- TSMC to invest $1B in OpenAI and Anthropic, fueling circular financing concerns — Ars Technica AI · 2026-11-12
- Memory stocks rebound as CoreWeave forecast signals demand: SanDisk +16.75% — fallingdowndizzyvr · 2026-11-12