Particularly DeepSeek 4.1, which they appear to be A/B testing on the API and which also seems available on the free chat interface.
It also has an input image modality, which is a game changer. The cheap Sinofrontier models have generally been lacking in this regard.
Basically, Chinese competition is fierce - DeepSeek set the pricing tier, and the question for each lab now is how to justify charging a little more.
MiMo-2.5-Pro has gone with UltraSoeed, pumping out 1000t/s for a 3X price hike.
GLM has gone with 5.2, hitting Opus levels of reasoning at a fraction of the cost.
DeepSeek will probably keep their pricing model and just keep getting better and better.
Qwen-3.7 is the dark horse. Some rumours are Alibaba is simply making these models because they need them internally.
The real question is why this level of innovation and competition isn’t happening in America or Europe. In particular I see no reason Europe doesn’t have a lab competing on these terms.
Competing and innovating in the fast moving SOTA end of the llm space requires a ruthless disregard for copyright, IP, bureaucracies, formalities, risk assurances and other slowdowns. It requires a risk tolerant, quick and large flowing investment of capital. It requires a scoped focus that is pragmatic and sharp about key concerns, and efficiently dismissive of meaningless details.
Europe can provide none of this. They will never be at the frontier of AI tech, for the same reason they were never at the frontier of any tech.
I say this as a software engineer from Europe.
I’m not completely convinced that America and China are both lawless free for alls, and that that is what’s required for AI innovation.
Europe was never at the frontier of any tech? Huh what now?
A hyperbole born of frustration, I admit.
Qualify it to software, rather than all tech, if you will.
Not since the salad days of Nokia. Ancient history at this point.