AI race splits in two as China wages open-weight insurgency

China's open-weight AI models from companies like Moonshot AI, Tencent, and Xiaomi are gaining dominance over Silicon Valley's premium models, with Chinese models occupying the top five spots on OpenRouter by weekly token usage. Businesses are shifting to cheaper, customizable alternatives for routine tasks, threatening the market position of U.S. AI leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic.