Huo Xing Cai Jing reports that the U.S. research firm Rhodium Group estimates that the combined annual recurring revenue (ARR) of China’s AI models is only about 10% of OpenAI’s and Anthropic’s revenues. DeepSeek’s ARR is $500 million, MiniMax’s is $800 million, Moonshot’s is $1 billion, and Z.ai’s latest ARR is $1.8 billion. Even when adding ByteDance’s $4 billion and Alibaba’s $2.4 billion, these figures remain far below OpenAI’s $40 billion and Anthropic’s $65 billion. According to Rhodium’s report, Moonshot and DeepSeek are currently valued significantly higher relative to their revenue, with estimated multiples of 50x and 163x, respectively—higher than OpenAI’s 34x and Anthropic’s 21x. Z.ai has raised its full-year ARR forecast to $3 billion. Logan Wright, partner at Rhodium, stated that the funding gap makes it more difficult for China’s leading AI labs to expand sustainably, leaving them heavily reliant on favorable conditions in equity markets. Over 60% of equity investments in Chinese AI chips and servers originate from state-linked sources.
