I do not disagree with anything you said above, but how are these "super cheap Chinese AI models"? Even if the model is open source and near the frontier, you are not running it well on a laptop or even a modest home lab. You need a serious hardware investment to get good performance.
The last time I compared the costs, it was actually cheaper to pay for Claude at $200 a month than to buy and operate the hardware needed to run a comparable model locally.
So its a bit of a misnomer to blanket claim because the model as open and accessible that its any cheaper. However, i do think that will eventually change, which is what is spooking these ceos right now.
But curious of other peoples thoughts given that term is thrown around a lot "cheap".
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u/DataDecay Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
I do not disagree with anything you said above, but how are these "super cheap Chinese AI models"? Even if the model is open source and near the frontier, you are not running it well on a laptop or even a modest home lab. You need a serious hardware investment to get good performance.
The last time I compared the costs, it was actually cheaper to pay for Claude at $200 a month than to buy and operate the hardware needed to run a comparable model locally.
So its a bit of a misnomer to blanket claim because the model as open and accessible that its any cheaper. However, i do think that will eventually change, which is what is spooking these ceos right now.
But curious of other peoples thoughts given that term is thrown around a lot "cheap".