China Technology: Reading the OpenRouter Data
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Abstract
Drawing on CLSA research, this CITIC Securities (Hong Kong) report examines AI-model usage on the OpenRouter platform through end-September 2026. Demand is strong: weekly token consumption exceeds 146 trillion and combined annualized revenue (ARR) surpasses US$1.5 billion. Chinese models account for 65% of token usage but only 30% of spending, reflecting discounts of roughly 80% versus US model prices. The report argues that low pricing, via the Jevons paradox, has expanded usage and lifted total dollar spend. September spend split 70% US suppliers versus 30% Chinese. OpenAI leads on spend and is the fastest-growing supplier, with weekly spend share up 20 percentage points year-to-date to 27%. Among Chinese vendors, Z.ai, DeepSeek and Moonshot rank highest on spending share. Z.ai's progress on AWS Bedrock is flagged as a key indicator of open-weight models' monetization potential. The report issues no buy/sell ratings, listing only the leading providers by spend share.