Why Chinese AI Models Are 95% Cheaper — The Economics Explained (opens in new tab)

The $0.14-per-million-token Question In June 2026, calling GPT-4o costs $2.50 per million input tokens. DeepSeek V4 Pro charges $0.14. That's not a typo — it's a 94.4% discount. And it's not just DeepSeek. GLM-4.5 runs at $0.10/M. Qwen-3-235B sits at $0.20/M. The Chinese model ecosystem has converged on pricing that makes Western frontier models look like luxury goods. The reflexive explanation is "they're dumping to gain market share." That's wrong — or at least, it's only 10% of the story. ...