- Current state of Chinese AI: leaders, market figures and commitment to open source.
- Comparison of the best platforms: DeepSeek, Doubao, ERNIE, Qwen, Kimi, Hailuo and KLING.
- Prices, appsreal strengths and limitations, with a focus on privacy and reliability.
If they only sound familiar ChatGPTGemini, Copilot Or Meta AI, it's time to look to the East: the Chinese ecosystem of Artificial Intelligence It's advancing at full speed and is already competing head-to-head with the Western giants. China has woven a catalog of foundational models, platforms, and tools which not only equalizes capabilities, but also puts downward pressure on costs and accelerates open source innovation.
In this guide we condense the best and latest of that ecosystem, from multimodal chatbots and reasoning LLMs to video generators and deep learning frameworks. We've gathered features, performance, apps, prices, strengths and weaknessesIn addition to market context, so you can choose the platform that best suits you without getting lost in the noise.
Quick context: How China has gone from following in the footsteps to leading the way
The current boom began after the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, when OpenAI It demonstrated the conversational potential of LLMs. Google reacted late, Meta opened Llama and the sector was shaken.
By November 2024, the Cyberspace Administration of China had officially registered 309 large modelscovering e-commerce, health, education, finance and ciberseguridadAccording to iiMedia, the Chinese market for models reached 29.416 billion yuan in 2024 and could exceed 70.000 billion in 2026, with an average usage of 4,5 times per week compared to 2,1 in Western markets.
This sprint has its own name: open source. Alibaba (Qwen) and others have released model families which hundreds of thousands of developers are deploying at a speed difficult to match in closed labs. The result is a vibrant ecosystem, with competitive, low-cost models and real-world adoption at scale.
The best Chinese AI platforms (and what they're used for)
1) DeepSeek: powerful reasoning and affordable cost
DeepSeek made a splash with its V3 series and, above all, with R1, a reinforcement-trained reasoning model that thinks "in a low voice" before responding. Its fame came from combining performance and efficiency.a training cost reported at $5,57 million, a fraction of other elite models.
- Advanced reasoning for complex problems.
- Good skills in programming (code and explanations).
- Fluency in mathematicswith step-by-step demonstrations.
With DeepSeek R1 You don't get the answer instantly: the model first reflects (chain of thought), which brings transparency to demanding tasks. Users apply it to complex SQL, finance, and mathematical testing.The R1-0528 version reduces hallucinations by around 45-50% in drafting, rewriting, or summarizing tasks.
The last baseman of the house, DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus (September 2025), it alternates between a quick mode for trivial queries and a deep reasoning mode for difficult problems. Furthermore, it improves language quality and reduces Chinese-English mixing. In comparisons, ChatGPT's o3-mini can surpass it in mathematical accuracybut with a significantly higher operating cost and lower performance in Chinese.
Availability and price: web and apps (Android/iOS) with registration. free use The public version includes paid services via API. It also offers variants such as DeepSeek Math, Coder, and VL (vision).
2) Doubao (ByteDance): massive customization and a "warm" experience
Doubao is ByteDance's (TikTok/Douyin) big bet. It was created for the general public and has conquered China with a a more visual, intimate and social experienceIn 2024-2025 it accumulated staggering figures: more than 160 million records and peaks of 800.000. downloads daily; in August it reached 157 million monthly active users and it was the most popular AI app in the country.
It works with text, voice, and video; it generates images, presentations, spreadsheets, podcasts, and 5-second clips. Its key differentiator is... intelligent agents With avatar, voice, name, and customizable personality; you can even create your own, adjust privacy settings, and share it with the community. Its integration with Douyin redirects traffic and it promotes virality.
In terms of performance, the series Doubao 1.5-Pro It introduced inference enhancements and climbed in both closed and open rankings, competing with GPT-4 and Claude 3.5 Sonnet. version 1.6 It adds enhanced multimodality, vastly expanded context memory, and the ability to simulate click/drag actions, which automates everyday workflows (e.g. dumping tickets into Excel).
Social trick: Doubao makes it easy to share results, and on Douyin, you can... Tag Doubao to summarize videosIts responses recommend content that plays without leaving the app. It's where "comfort and dopamine" go hand in hand. Price: Free For users; business line available.
3) ERNIE Bot (Baidu): language, multimodality and an emotional touch
BaiduGoogle, the dominant search engine in China, offers Ernie Bot as a general-purpose assistant. Its latest iteration, ERNIE Bot 4.0 Turbo, generates multimodal content (text, images, websites, PDF and audio) and integrates with DeepSeek for in-depth searches with expert-level answers.
One curious difference: their answers may have empathetic tone When you're dealing with personal topics. It's proficient in ideation, commercial copywriting, analysis, and polishing long texts. It supports Chinese and English (with more limited English comprehension). Available on the web and as an app; currently requires registration.
Price: plan around $ 6,86 / monthwith official announcement of completely free access starting April 1st (according to Baidu's own announcements). Furthermore, the group is boosting its ecosystem with PaddlePaddle (open source framework) and Kunlun's own chips.
4) Hailuo AI (MiniMax): Text to video with a focus on coherence and physics
MiniMax, despite its youth, has burst onto the scene with force HailuoTheir S2V-01-Live model brought text-to-video to massive audiences (over 27 million international views). The company boasts a feature of prompt optimization that translates your intention into highly accurate instructions.
Version S2V-01 It premiered “Subject Reference”: you upload an image and the AI maintains the protagonist's visual identity while performing new actions, balancing fidelity and creative freedom without needing neither extensive datasets nor LoRAIt processes in seconds and drastically reduces computing costs.
With Hailuo 02 They made a leap in understanding the physical world: plausible movements, realistic splashes and more complex scenes handled better. It's like going from having a consistent actor to having a top-notch action director.
Comparison with Sora: Hailuo achieves compelling and free trial pieces (1000 initial credits, 10-20 videos), while Sora offers a monthly subscription. Favorable cost-benefit ratio for experimenting. Price: standard plan around $9/month.
5) Qwen (Alibaba): the open source “all-rounder”
Qwen is Alibaba Cloud's family of models and, possibly, the most influential in open source Today, thousands of derivatives circulate within the community, surpassing even Llama in the number of forks and variants. Qwen focuses on language, multimodality, mathematics, and programming.
The Qwen 2.5-Max It shines in Chatbot Arena and excels in programming with its function ArtifactsAlibaba leverages its consumer insights for customizations, and its open strategy accelerates adoption and deployment. This renders web UIs in real time from code.
Trained in 29 languages (German, Arabic, Spanish, among others), it offers good multilingual results. Web availability With or without registration; official apps for Android/iOS, not always available in all countries. Price: Free for general use, with associated cloud services.
6) Kimi (Moonshot): very long texts and visual reasoning
Moonshot has transformed Kimi into a favorite among professionals who work with large documents. The platform became famous for handling up to 200.000 Chinese characters Maintaining consistency. In terms of traffic, Kimi even topped weekly rankings in China.
It is useful for information retrieval, document interpretation, and academic writing. verifiable references and spell checking. Their viral content generator is popular on social networks such as xiaohongshuOn the other hand, it can omit details or lose logic It handles large texts more slowly and is slower on complex tasks.
novelty K1 It adds visual reasoning, showing complete thought processes in image analysis (for example, explaining why a meme works). The experience is more didactic and can become a relevant educational tool. Price: free version with a voluntary tip system.
7) KLING AI (Kuaishou): versatile generative video
KLING AI, from Kuaishou (direct competitor of TikTok), stands out for its variety of entries: text to video, image to video, video extension and content filtering. The extension allows you to continue scenes from existing photos or clips while maintaining narrative and style.
Version 1.6 Improved text response, dynamic quality, and visual aesthetics; in image-to-video it boasts a 195% improvement Compared to version 1.5, it features more natural movements and expressions. It also offers virtual clothing try-ons for e-commerce.
Price: Free trials and standard plan around $ 6,6 / monthIts presence on X (Twitter) with creative extensions has popularized the format.
Beyond the chatbot: frameworks, clouds and featured models
Chinese muscle isn't just about conversational assistants. The technical and industrial layer is extensive. and already competes globally in frameworks and verticals.
- Baidu: PaddlePaddle (open source framework) and ERNIE; leadership also in autonomous driving with Apollo.
- AlibabaQwen and ModelScopeCity Brain for smart urban management.
- Tencent: Hunyuan for company; Tencent Miying deploys medical imaging diagnostics in more than 100 hospitals.
- Huawei: MindSpore optimized for Ascend chips; PanGu model with industrial and meteorological applications.
- iFlytekSpark LLM, strong in voice (ASR/TTS) and education.
- SenseTimeSenseNova/SenseChat; computer vision, smart cities and 3D avatars.
- Megvii: Face++ (vision APIs) and MegEngine (open source framework).
Startups to watch: Zhipu AI (GLM, a pioneer in agents and with plans to go public), Baichuan (Baichuan 2 open source), MiniMax (Hailuo) and DeepSeek (efficiency and advanced reasoning).
Foundational models visible on the radar: ERNIE 4.x, Qwen 2.5, SparkDesk, PanGu 3.0, SenseChat 5.0, GLM-4, Baichuan 2. They are the basis of multimodal solutions and applications by sector (health, education, retail, industry, public sector).
The Chinese “Big 5”: who sets the pace and why
A quintet leads the way: Alibaba, ByteDance, Stepfun, DeepSeek and ZhipuEach one has a clear strategic angle: open source, mass consumer product, long-term research, or agents.
Alibaba It has focused on Qwen and open source: releasing models and cultivating an ecosystem while monetizing cloud and premium services. It has announced huge investments in AI and infrastructure (tens of billions (of dollars) to accelerate adoption.
ByteDance It brings what few others have: a massive global product and real-world engagement data. Its expertise with viral algorithms is being transferred to Doubao, which iterate with feedback from millions of users and promotes UX and distribution as a competitive advantage.
Stepfun It maintains a low profile but aims high in benchmarks. Backed by state capital, invest in patient research led by top-level talent (as co-authors of ResNet), with good results in OpenCompass and Chatbot Arena.
ZhipuBorn at Tsinghua University, it promotes AI agents and concepts like Phone Use. It wants to be the first Chinese LLM startup to go public, which would publicly measure the value of these companies in markets in Hong Kong or Shanghai.
DeepSeek It represents pure research as an advantage: teams focused on technical efficiency, without short-term commercial pressuresThey have shown that it is possible to compete with smaller budgets if the focus is on ingenuity.
Comparisons and practical notes that interest you
Performance: ChatGPT's o3-mini can outperform R1 in mathematical accuracy, but significantly higher operating cost and performs worse in non-English-speaking languages like Chinese. DeepSeek, on the other hand, boasts efficiency and transparency with an explicit thought process.
Generative video: Sora offers cinematic realism, but Hailuo makes it easier Free trials and prompt optimization With just one click, KLING shines thanks to its video input and extension modes for existing material, useful for creators and brands.
Open vs. closed: the Qwen opening This has led to the emergence of derivatives on Hugging Face and GitHub, while closed platforms like Ernie, Claude, and GPT are advancing with polished products and robust APIs. This mixed competition is accelerating innovation on a global scale.
Macro impact: China's AI "democratization of computing" puts pressure on margins, influences stock valuations and restructuring of production chains. They have been seen multi-million dollar market crashes on specific days and regulatory tensions (for example, in autonomous driving) for reasons of national security.
App availability, languages, and privacy
DeepSeek, Doubao, ERNIE, Qwen, Kimi and KLING offer web access and, in most cases, Android/iOS apps (Qwen may not be available as an app in some countries). Doubao also has desktop versions (Windows and MacERNIE and Yuanbao (Tencent) require registration, although basic access is usually free.
Languages: Qwen is trained in 29 languagesDeepSeek handles well in several languages, including Spanish. ERNIE supports Chinese and English, with better mastery of the firstKimi and Doubao prioritize Chinese, although they offer increasingly global interfaces and content.
Privacy and reliability: as with any LLM, Avoid uploading personal or sensitive data.Although hallucinations are less frequent, they still occur, and it's important to verify critical findings. If you want to run models locally, check the official repositories on GitHub: DeepSeek, Kimi, and Qwen publish components and versions for private execution.
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