Domestic Open-Source Large Models Surpass 10 Billion Global Downloads, Signaling a New Commercial Cycle for China's AI Industry

Overview

In the first half of 2026, the global adoption of Chinese open-source large AI models reached a historic high. According to information from the State Council Information Office press conference on September 18, the cumulative global downloads of domestic open-source large models have exceeded 10 billion. This milestone marks a shift in Chinese AI technology from a mere "chaser" to a significant "contributor" to the global ecosystem.

At the same time, the pace of industrial commercialization has clearly accelerated. Leading enterprises are increasingly adjusting their pricing strategies as the industry moves from the early free public beta phase into a mature cycle of value exchange.

Industrial Scale and Computing Power Foundation

China has become the largest owner of global artificial intelligence patents, with its patent applications accounting for as high as 60% of the total. By the end of June 2025, the total scale of racks in operational computing centers within the country reached 10.85 million standard racks, with intelligent computing power reaching 788 EFLOPS; by the end of June 2026, intelligent computing power further surged to 2185 EFLOPS, demonstrating strong momentum in infrastructure construction.

On the application side, user scale has shown explosive growth. By June 2025, the number of generative AI users in China reached 515 million, doubling within half a year, with a penetration rate of 36.5%. Chinese companies have released 1,509 open-source large models, ranking among the top globally, forming a complete industrial system that covers basic foundations and industry applications.

"There are now over 6,200 AI enterprises in China, and the core scale of the AI industry exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan in 2025." — Ministry of Commerce

Commercialization Turning Point: From Open Source to Profitability

With improvements in technological maturity, the AI industry has officially entered a new commercialization cycle. Since April 2026, major vendors such as Zhipu, Tencent, and Alibaba have successively ended their free public beta offerings and raised API call prices. Among them, Zhipu raised prices by 10% while releasing its new generation flagship model GLM-5.1, while Tencent's Hunyuan large model saw price increases of as high as 463%.

This series of moves indicates that Chinese AI enterprises now possess strong market pricing capability. Despite cost pressures, high-quality open-source models continue to attract global developers, and cumulative downloads of tens of billions validate their technical competitiveness and ecosystem value.

Technological Frontiers and Global Competitiveness

In terms of technological innovation, Chinese large models maintain global leadership across multiple dimensions. The latest weekly AI large model call volume rankings show that four out of the top ten are Chinese models, marking the fourteenth consecutive week that Chinese models have dominated the global leaderboard. In the robotics sector, Chinese-developed quadruped intelligent robots account for nearly 70% of global sales, and over 400 humanoid robot whole-machine products have been developed.

Furthermore, multimodality and scientific intelligence have emerged as new growth drivers. Qwen-AgentWorld, released by Qwen, serves as the first native language world model, further expanding the boundaries of AI applications. From basic sciences to vertical industries, Chinese large models are driving the deep-water phase of intelligent transformation across various sectors.