Frontier AI LLMs Tier List
The most-used AI model in the world right now doesn't come from a lab - it comes from a phone company. That's the real headline of this tier list: the frontier stopped being a club of research houses and became a fight between business models.
And China's playbook, open weights, brutal pricing, domestic silicon - closed the quality gap to 2.7% on 23x less money. The US labs won the intelligence race and are losing the distribution one.
The most-used AI model in the world right now doesn't come from a lab - it comes from a phone company. That's the real headline of this tier list: the frontier stopped being a club of research houses and became a fight between business models.
And China's playbook, open weights, brutal pricing, domestic silicon - closed the quality gap to 2.7% on 23x less money. The US labs won the intelligence race and are losing the distribution one.