China Closed the Price Gap. The Capability Gap Is Still There.
Stanford put the US lead over China at 2.7%. That number is from March, it rests on a benchmark Stanford itself calls gameable, and the live August data shows a wider spread. The gap that actually closed is cost — Chinese models now run 60% to 90% cheaper and hold up to 46% of token volume on OpenRouter. Here is how to read both numbers.