Artificial Analysis: State of AI in China – Q1 2025

Summary of Read Full Report (PDF)

Artificial Analysis's Q1 2025 report analyzes the state of AI, particularly focusing on the advancements in language models from both the US and China. The report highlights that Chinese AI labs have significantly closed the gap in AI intelligence, now rivaling top US models.

Open-source models and reasoning capabilities are becoming increasingly common in China. The study also examines the impact of US export controls on AI accelerators and how companies like NVIDIA are adapting.

Specific NVIDIA and AMD hardware specifications are provided for various AI accelerators. The analysis includes a breakdown of leading AI firms in both countries, along with their respective AI strategies and funding.

Here are five interesting takeaways from the source:

• Chinese AI labs have largely caught up to US AI labs in language model intelligence. Several Chinese models are now competitive with top US models, and Chinese AI labs are no longer laggards.
• Open weights models are closing in on frontier labs. Models from DeepSeek and Alibaba have approached o1-level intelligence. Chinese AI startups, supported by Big Tech firms and the government, have developed some of the world’s leading open weights models.
• Reasoning models are becoming commonplace. Chinese competitors, led by DeepSeek, have largely replicated the intelligence of OpenAI's o1 reasoning models within months of their introduction. Several AI labs in China now have frontier-level reasoning models.
• US export controls restrict the export of leading NVIDIA accelerators to China based on performance and density thresholds. The H20 and L20 fall below these thresholds and can be freely exported.
• Early 2025 has seen Chinese AI labs prolifically releasing frontier reasoning models. Labs such as Alibaba, DeepSeek, MoonShot, Tencent, Zhipu and Baichuan are included.