I Spent a Week Comparing Chinese AI Models and Here's What I Found

Short summary

A bootcamp grad compares four Chinese AI models (DeepSeek, Qwen, Kimi, GLM) with Western alternatives, finding feature parity at 40× lower cost. DeepSeek V4 Flash at $0.25/M output tokens beats GPT-4o's $10/M with comparable code generation. All support OpenAI API format and 128K context, enabling cost-effective replacements.

• •Chinese AI models (DeepSeek, Qwen) match Western performance at 40× lower cost
• •DeepSeek V4 Flash ($0.25/M) and Qwen3-8B ($0.01/M) are cost leaders with multimodal options
• •All support OpenAI API format for drop-in replacement potential

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.