The price of using artificial intelligence is falling. In China, entry-level access to AI models has been marketed for about $3 a month by the country’s hottest AI group Zhipu. Widely seen as one of China’s closest local equivalents to OpenAI, it develops large language models to compete with US systems.
In a market where paid plans from US peers are closer to $20 a month depending on tier, and enterprise contracts run into the millions annually, this move by Zhipu amounts to a price war.
That gap goes beyond product pricing. Since its Hong Kong debut in January, shares of Knowledge Atlas Technology Joint Stock, better known as Zhipu AI, have gained 300 per cent. Yet even after that rally, its market value of $29bn remains a fraction of top US AI groups. OpenAI’s private market valuation stands at $500bn and Anthropic was valued at about $350bn in its latest funding round.