{"id":57304,"date":"2025-11-18T14:12:04","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T08:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/?p=57304"},"modified":"2025-11-19T00:00:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T18:30:40","slug":"80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/","title":{"rendered":"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Update<\/strong>: a16z partner Martin Casado has said that he was misquoted in the Economist article. &#8220;To clarify for context &#8211; the quoted stat was referring to 80% of the 20-30% of new applicants running open source models. Still significant trend towards opensource,&#8221; he <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/kingwillxm\/status\/1990806052234056152?s=20\">posted <\/a>on X. We&#8217;ve updated the headline to reflect this. The original article follows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chinese AI models are making their way to the top ends of <a href=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/top-10-chinese-ai-language-models-in-2025\/\">benchmarks <\/a>and leaderboards, and VCs are already seeing the difference on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Martin Casado, a partner at a16z, has said that a majority of startups that pitch to them now use Chinese AI models. &#8220;I&#8217;d say 80% chance (they are) using a Chinese open-source model,&#8221; he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.economist.com\/business\/2025\/08\/21\/china-is-quietly-upstaging-america-with-its-open-models\">says <\/a>in an interview with The Economist. (Update: Casado meant 80% of startups which use open-source models, which are around 20-30 percent. This translates to 16-24% of all startups using Chinese open models)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80-1024x576.jpg?resize=640%2C360&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-57305\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?resize=300%2C169&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?resize=768%2C432&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?w=1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Chinese AI models have grown in prominence in recent times. While <a href=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/chinas-deepseek-updates-r1-model-shows-benchmarks-comparable-to-google-and-openais-top-models\/\">DeepSeek <\/a>was the first Chinese AI model that had gone mainstream, there are now dozes of Chinese companies that are making extremely capable AI models. These models can generate text, images, and videos, and are often much cheaper than models released by top US-based labs. More crucially, these models are open-weights, which means that companies can tweak them and host them independently without being dependent on their creators or other third parties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And China&#8217;s dominance in this space has only increased in recent times. A Chinese model, Kimi K2 Thinking, is currently <a href=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/chinas-kimi-k2-thinking-beats-grok-4-claude-sonnet-4-5-gemini-2-5-pro-on-artificial-analysis-intelligence-index\/\">placed ahead<\/a> of the best closed models from Google, Anthropic and Grok on Artificial Analysis&#8217; Intelligence Leaderboard, and is only behind OpenAI&#8217;s GPT-5. The model is also open-weights, which means that it is the best open model in the world. Apart from Kimi K2, Chinese models like <a href=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/chinas-open-source-minimax-m2-model-places-5th-on-artificial-analysis-intelligence-index-beats-gemini-2-5-pro-claude-4-1-opus\/\">MiniMax-M2<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/openais-open-weights-model-scores-below-chinas-qwen-deepseek-r1-in-artificial-analysiss-intelligence-index\/\">Qwen3<\/a>, DeepSeek and GLM are all in the top 15, providing cheaper and open alternatives to the best American models. a16z&#8217;s Marc Andreessen has often <a href=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/marc-andreessen-explains-why-us-must-beat-china-in-open-source-ai\/\">emphasized <\/a>on how the US needs to beat China at AI, but with 80% of American startups that his firms see already using Chinese AI models, the US would need to take urgent steps to make sure that it isn&#8217;t left behind in the AI race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Update: a16z partner Martin Casado has said that he was misquoted in the Economist article. &#8220;To clarify for context &#8211; the quoted stat&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":57305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1029],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ai"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Update: a16z partner Martin Casado has said that he was misquoted in the Economist article. &#8220;To clarify for context &#8211; the quoted stat...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"OfficeChai\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficeChai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-11-18T08:42:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-11-18T18:30:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"OfficeChai Team\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@OfficeChai\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@OfficeChai\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"OfficeChai Team\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/\",\"name\":\"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-11-18T08:42:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-11-18T18:30:40+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5861f1134993293cc28905de7624d6b2\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":675},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/\",\"name\":\"OfficeChai\",\"description\":\"Startups, Businesses And Careers\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5861f1134993293cc28905de7624d6b2\",\"name\":\"OfficeChai Team\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/61d744733248dc647d505d0676bb425323413132ee5447e86aa8eecbbb7b27d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/61d744733248dc647d505d0676bb425323413132ee5447e86aa8eecbbb7b27d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"OfficeChai Team\"},\"description\":\"Dotting the i's, crossing the t's.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/officechai.com\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner","og_description":"Update: a16z partner Martin Casado has said that he was misquoted in the Economist article. &#8220;To clarify for context &#8211; the quoted stat...","og_url":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/","og_site_name":"OfficeChai","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/OfficeChai\/","article_published_time":"2025-11-18T08:42:04+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-11-18T18:30:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"http:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"OfficeChai Team","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@OfficeChai","twitter_site":"@OfficeChai","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"OfficeChai Team","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/","url":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/","name":"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","datePublished":"2025-11-18T08:42:04+00:00","dateModified":"2025-11-18T18:30:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5861f1134993293cc28905de7624d6b2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","contentUrl":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","width":1200,"height":675},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/ai\/80-chance-that-startups-we-see-are-using-chinese-ai-models-andreessen-horowitz-partner\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"80% Of Startups Using Open-source Models Are Using Chinese Models: Andreessen Horowitz Partner"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/","name":"OfficeChai","description":"Startups, Businesses And Careers","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#\/schema\/person\/5861f1134993293cc28905de7624d6b2","name":"OfficeChai Team","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/61d744733248dc647d505d0676bb425323413132ee5447e86aa8eecbbb7b27d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/61d744733248dc647d505d0676bb425323413132ee5447e86aa8eecbbb7b27d5?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"OfficeChai Team"},"description":"Dotting the i's, crossing the t's.","url":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/officechai.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Q474QVbBmWZ5ikCEuVfVrB-1200-80.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p685C6-eUg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57304"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57343,"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57304\/revisions\/57343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/officechai.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}