Americans switch to Chinese AI as cheaper models challenge ChatGPT and Claude despite Trump crackdown
American developers and companies are increasingly adopting Chinese AI models like Kimi K3 due to their affordability and performance. This trend persists despite the Trump administration's efforts to restrict Chinese technology and concerns over intellectual property theft.
Why it matters
The adoption of foreign AI models by US entities creates a tension between economic efficiency and national security/trade policy.
Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) models are becoming increasingly popular in the United States, even as the Trump administration takes a tougher stand against Chinese technology. Many Americans are switching from popular US AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude to Chinese AI models because they are cheaper and work well for many everyday tasks.San Francisco-based Raffi Krikorian, the chief technology officer at Mozilla, said he started using Chinese AI startup Moonshot's Kimi K3 just days after it launched. Krikorian said he uses Kimi K3 for many daily tasks instead of Anthropic's Claude chatbot. He said, "It just seems snappier," while comparing K3 with Anthropic's Claude Fable chatbot, as quoted by AP.Why Americans are choosing Chinese AIBefore switching to Kimi K3, Krikorian had been using another Chinese AI model, Z.ai's GLM-5.2, for routine work like managing his calendar, documents and emails. Krikorian is not alone.
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