The Chinese AI ecosystem has exploded. In 2024, Chinese models were mostly also-rans. In 2025, they're leading in several categories. Here's a guide to the top 5.
1. DeepSeek R1
Best for: Reasoning, math, coding. 671B params (37B active). Open weights. The model that changed everything.
2. GLM-4.6 (Zhipu AI)
Best for: General chat, coding, agents. Zhipu's flagship is excellent at following complex instructions and is particularly strong in Chinese-English bilingual tasks.
3. Qwen3-235B (Alibaba)
Best for: Multilingual tasks, long context. Supports 119 languages natively. Alibaba's open-source approach has won it a huge developer following.
4. Moonshot v1 (Kimi)
Best for: Long-context tasks. Kimi famously handles 2-million-token contexts, making it perfect for document analysis and research.
5. MiniMax-01
Best for: Creative writing, voice. MiniMax excels at natural-sounding text generation and has an impressive TTS system.
Which Should You Use?
The beauty of OriAI is you don't have to choose. One subscription gives you access to all of them. Try each model on your task and pick the winner.