Misleading headline.
For six consecutive weeks, Chinese AI models have outpaced their American counterparts in total API call volume on OpenRouter, one of the largest AI model routing platforms, signaling a decisive shift in global developer adoption patterns.
- It's from openrouter. Most us model users don't go through Openrouter (most chinese probably don't either, but the ratio is probably higher for us).
- Also like half of openrouter's volume if not more is handled by western inference providers since the model is open
- Openrouter rankings tend to be skewed by discounts and free models (like Minimax m3 is on a 50% discount) , both on openrouter or through apps like Kilo code which route through openrouter then provide a discount