Best Chinese AI models

Chinese labs now ship frontier-class models at a fraction of US flagship prices, and most of them publish open weights. These are the best Chinese AI models in 2026, ranked on real agentic-coding performance and value, from Moonshot, DeepSeek, Alibaba, MiniMax, Z.AI, and Xiaomi.

The ranking
Updated June 2026
  • 1MoonshotAI
    Kimi K2.6Moonshot AIMoonshot's flagship: the strongest Chinese agentic coder (47.6% on CursorBench), with a free tier.
    Context262K
    Input$0.67/M
  • 2Qwen
    Qwen3.7 MaxQwenAlibaba's frontier model: the highest Intelligence Index score of any Chinese model here.
    Context262K
    Input$0.8/M
  • 3DeepSeek
    DeepSeek V4DeepSeekA 1M token context window and open weights at $0.435 per million input tokens.
    Context1.049M
    Input$0.435/M
  • 4Minimax
    MiniMax-M3MiniMaxThe value flagship: near-frontier intelligence at $0.30 per million input tokens.
    Context205K
    Input$0.3/M
  • 5Zhipu
    GLM 5.1Z.AIZ.AI's flagship GLM, open weights and a strong all-rounder for agent work.
    Context203K
    Input$0.98/M
  • 6Qwen
    Qwen3 Coder 480B A35BQwenThe open-weight coding specialist: 1M context for big repositories, with a free tier.
    Context1.049M
    Input$0.22/M
  • 7DeepSeek
    DeepSeek V4 FlashDeepSeekThe cheapest 1M-context model anywhere: $0.098 per million input tokens.
    Context1.049M
    Input$0.098/M
  • 8M
    MiMo-V2.5XiaomiXiaomi's surprise: a 1M context window at $0.14 per million input tokens.
    Context1.049M
    Input$0.14/M
  • 9Zhipu
    GLM 4.7 FlashZ.AIThe budget runner at $0.06 per million input tokens, for high-volume pipelines.
    Context203K
    Input$0.06/M
Intelligence vs. price

Each model's Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index score against its blended price per 1M tokens. Toward the top right is more intelligence per dollar.

Full interactive leaderboard on our Intelligence Index page.

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  • Models

    9

  • Updated

    June 2026
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