Data Insight
Jan. 2, 2026

Chinese AI models have lagged the US frontier by 7 months on average since 2023

Luke Emberson's avatar
By Luke Emberson

Since 2023, every model at the frontier of AI capabilities, as measured by the Epoch Capabilities Index, has been developed in the United States. Over that same period, Chinese models have trailed US capabilities by an average of seven months, with a minimum gap of four months and a maximum gap of 14.

This gap closely resembles the broader gap between proprietary and open-weight models. This is unsurprising since nearly all leading Chinese models are open-weight, while frontier US models remain closed.

Epoch's work is free to use, distribute, and reproduce provided the source and authors are credited under the Creative Commons BY license.

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We visualize the gap in capabilities between US and Chinese models, using the Epoch Capabilities Index (ECI). Since 2023, the gap has ranged from 4 to 14 months, with a mean gap of 7 months.

Analysis

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ECI scores of US and Chinese models
CSV, Updated Jan. 6, 2026

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