Chinese AI models rise to global prominence

Since the start of the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), an increasing number of large Al models from China have rapidly risen to global prominence, injecting strong momentum into China's high-quality economic development.

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China's artificial intelligence industry has maintained robust growth throughout the period, with both the number of enterprises and the industry's overall scale expanding steadily, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Domestic large language models such as DeepSeek and Tongyi Qianwen are spearheading the global open-source ecosystem, while Al-powered smartphones, smart glasses and other intelligent terminals are gaining rapid traction. Industry-specific Al models are also demonstrating tangible results across various sectors.

China is now home to more than 5,100 Al enterprises and leads the world in the number of released large Al models. Chinese Al models currently occupy nine of the top 10 positions in the ranking of Hugging Face, a leading global open-source Al community. This achievement was realized in less than two years.

According to Liu Lichong, head of the National Data Administration, daily token consumption in China stood at 100 billion at the beginning of 2024. By the end of June 2025, that figure had soared beyond 30 trillion, a more than 300-fold increase in just 18 months.

Domestic companies have continued to make substantial investments in research and development, driving sustained performance improvements in large language models from China.