Chinese model adoption runs deep
The scale of that adoption is visible in the numbers. Alibaba’s Qwen model family is now the largest ecosystem on Hugging Face with over 100,000 derivative models, the paper said. From November to December 2025, seven of the ten most downloaded models on the platform came from Chinese labs, including derivatives of DeepSeek, whose rapid rise has already unsettled enterprise AI procurement assumptions.
The paper further added that commercial penetration extends deep into US enterprises. One partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz estimated that roughly 80% of US startups use Chinese base models to build derivative applications, the paper noted. On pricing, Moonshot AI’s Kimi K2.5 costs four times less than OpenAI’s GPT-5.2 while matching it on capability scores, the paper said, citing Artificial Analysis benchmark data.
“Enterprises are no longer making a clear, deliberate choice about which AI model they adopt,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst at Greyhound Research. “Models are entering enterprise environments through copilots, SaaS platforms, API layers, and fine-tuned derivatives. The enterprise is often several layers removed from the original source.”
