US AI companies outpace Chinese rivals in estimated revenue

OpenAI and Anthropic are generating substantially higher estimated revenues than a group of leading Chinese artificial intelligence companies, according to industry research and recent financial reports.

Estimates published by research organisation Epoch AI put the combined annualised revenue run rate of OpenAI and Anthropic at about US$105 billion. By comparison, six Chinese AI companies, including ByteDance, Alibaba, DeepSeek, Z.ai, Moonshot AI and MiniMax, were estimated to have a combined run rate of around US$11 billion.

The figures suggest that the two US companies are generating close to 10 times the estimated revenue of the Chinese group. However, the comparison brings together estimates from different months and should not be treated as a direct comparison of audited annual earnings.

ByteDance accounted for the largest share of the Chinese group’s estimated revenue, at around US$4 billion. Alibaba was estimated at US$2.4 billion, while Z.ai was placed at US$1.8 billion. DeepSeek and Moonshot AI were each estimated at around US$1 billion, with MiniMax at approximately US$800 million.

Recent third-quarter figures also show strong revenue growth at the two US companies. Anthropic reported US$17 billion in revenue for the three months ended September, up from US$11.6 billion in the previous quarter. OpenAI’s revenue reached US$10 billion, representing growth of around 50 per cent from the second quarter, according to figures reported by The Wall Street Journal.

DeepSeek has also been expanding its business. Reuters reported in September that the Chinese AI developer’s annualised revenue run rate had reached US$1 billion, more than doubling within a few months. The figure was attributed to reporting by The Information, which cited people familiar with the matter.

The revenue gap does not necessarily reflect the difference in technical capability between the companies. Revenue is influenced by pricing, commercial partnerships, customer numbers, product distribution and the ways companies sell access to their models.

There are also differences in what the estimates measure. For example, the ByteDance and Alibaba figures cited by Epoch AI relate specifically to model-as-a-service revenue, rather than the companies’ overall business income.

The figures nevertheless highlight the commercial lead currently held by OpenAI and Anthropic in the market for AI products and services, while Chinese developers continue to build their customer bases and expand their paid offerings.