Open models are taking over more of the AI workload

TechCrunch says Chinese open-weight models accounted for 41% of Hugging Face downloads this spring, surpassing U.S. models. It also cites OpenRouter rankings where the top six popular models were open models from Chinese firms, and Vercel data showing open-weight models handling nearly a third of AI requests on the platform in June. The piece argues that the practical AI race is shifting below the expensive frontier layer.

Key details: Chinese open-weight models accounted for 41% of Hugging Face downloads this spring, Open models dominated OpenRouter's top usage rankings, Vercel data showed open-weight models handling nearly a third of AI requests in June.

Why it matters: Usage is shifting toward cheaper open models, which affects developer economics and weakens the assumption that only frontier APIs matter.