Chapter Zero · Beginner FAQ

What Chinese AI Models Are Out There? How to Choose?

First, a fact that may surprise you: on global blind-test leaderboards, Chinese models stopped being "the ones catching up" a while ago — several rank among the world's best. The real question isn't "which is strongest," but "which fits your scenario."

One-sentence answer

The main players: Alibaba's Qwen (Tongyi), Moonshot AI's Kimi, DeepSeek, ByteDance's Doubao, Zhipu's GLM, Baidu's ERNIE, Tencent's Hunyuan, MiniMax, and more. They're like top students in different majors — each has its best subject. Choosing by scenario beats asking "who's number one" every time.

Find Your Match · Click Your Scenario, See Who Fits
The Main Players · Each One's Best Subject

Qwen (Tongyi)

Alibaba

The all-rounder: its flagship ranks top five on the global text blind-test leaderboard, arm-wrestling with the world's best tier; its image generation also ranks among the global leaders. It releases lots of open-source versions — one of the most-used open-source families among developers worldwide.

Kimi

Moonshot AI

A strong hand at Agent work: its flagship ranks top five on the global Agent leaderboard — very competitive in the "get things done on your own" subject; handling long documents has always been its traditional strength.

DeepSeek

DeepSeek

The value king: its official API costs just a couple of yuan (well under $0.50) per million input tokens — a fraction of same-tier models — with solid coding and reasoning. A darling of the global developer community, synonymous with "big results on a small budget."

Doubao / Jimeng

ByteDance

The polished all-in-one experience: the Doubao app is one of China's most-used AI apps, with zero learning curve; its image model Seedream and video model Seedance both rank near the top globally — video generation reached number two worldwide.

GLM

Zhipu

The Tsinghua-rooted technologists: its flagship sits steadily just behind the very top tier globally; coding and tool use are its strengths, with a great open-source reputation and many enterprise customers.

ERNIE / Hunyuan / MiniMax…

Baidu / Tencent / MiniMax and others

Baidu's ERNIE integrates deeply with search; Tencent's Hunyuan is backed by the WeChat ecosystem with an open-source video model; MiniMax shines in voice and video (its video model ranks fourth globally among open-source); and Xiaomi, Meituan, and others have joined too — it's a crowded, lively race.

📊 Ranking facts come from the LMArena global user blind-test leaderboard (data as of August 2026). The board shifts every week, so don't memorize exact positions — just remember the structure: "each has its best subject."

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