China’s AI models, led by Kimi, dominate open-source enterprise spending

South China Morning Post · Minxiao Chang · 2026-11-06 13:30 UTC

Chinese systems account for 89 per cent of spending on open-source models, but the category is small compared with spending on proprietary models.

Chinese artificial intelligence models led by Moonshot AI’s Kimi family accounted for nearly nine-tenths of estimated global enterprise spending on open-source systems, according to a new study, even though proprietary US rivals continue to capture the vast majority of overall revenue.

The report, released this week by Silicon Valley venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, said Chinese AI systems accounted for 89 per cent of global enterprise spending on open-source models. Kimi led with a 61 per cent share, followed by DeepSeek at 15 per cent and Z.ai’s GLM series at 11 per cent.

By contrast, Meta Platforms’ Llama series, the leading Western offering in the category, accounted for just 7 per cent of open-source enterprise spending.

Read the full story at South China Morning Post · All coverage of this story