Chinese AI models have moved from niche alternatives to the dominant choice for developers across much of the world in less than a year, with token usage rising on OpenRouter and Vercel. Lower prices and strong performance are supporting adoption, particularly for coding and agentic tasks in which AI systems perform multi-step actions. U.S. frontier models still attract more overall spending, but the shift is drawing scrutiny in Washington over technology competition, security and Beijing’s global influence. The development has also heightened the significance of this week’s summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.