Chinese AI models now trail US systems by only 3% on benchmark scores, according to a Bloomberg Intelligence report from Monday. Senior analyst Robert Lea said China's progress "casts doubt on the long-term stability of US technological supremacy in artificial intelligence." DeepSeek V4.1 Flash helped narrow this gap significantly since May.
The performance gap between leading US and Chinese artificial intelligence models has narrowed to its lowest level yet, according to a new analysis from Bloomberg Intelligence. Chinese AI models now trail US intelligence models by only 3% on benchmark scores, raising new worries about whether US artificial intelligence can keep its lead.
Bloomberg Intelligence senior analyst Robert Lea said in a report on Monday that the gap has dropped from 9% in May and 15% earlier this year. The latest improvement follows the September launch of DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, showing how quickly Chinese AI companies are upgrading their models and hardware.
DeepSeeks' latest LiveBench score was 81.1 compared with 83.4 for Anthropic's model. Robert Lea said that DeepSeek's performance was comparable to leading intelligence systems from companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI.
However, the Chinese AI presence in the models remains small. Only three of the 15 ranked models on LiveBench are Chinese, Bloomberg Intelligence reported.
This development could weaken the impact of US restrictions on technology and NVIDIA chips, which were meant to slow Chinese AI growth. Chinese artificial intelligence companies are building alternatives and finding ways to boost model performance even with those limits, said Lea, adding that China's progress "casts doubt on the long-term stability of US technological supremacy in artificial intelligence."
Lea thinks that China's AI industry might stay unprofitable until 2030. The market has over 1,100 language models, causing fierce competition and a price war over artificial intelligence tokens.
ByteDance's Doubao is now the Chinese AI app that makes money, while DeepSeek and Tencent chatbots stay free, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
Lea argued that China's artificial intelligence industry needs competitive pressure, greater consolidation and more stable pricing to become profitable.
The shrinking performance gap does not mean that Chinese artificial intelligence companies will pass US intelligence leaders. Benchmark rankings can shift fast, and US regulatory checks and claims about model distillation could add obstacles for Chinese artificial intelligence developers, Bloomberg Intelligence says.