China’s AI Stars Are Cashing In on a Token Economy That’s Leaving US Rivals Scrambling

China’s AI gold rush has a new currency. Moonshot AI, the firm behind the Kimi chatbot, is exploring a Hong Kong IPO after early talks with Goldman Sachs and China International Capital Corp. The move follows a wave of Chinese AI listings, with Zhipu and MiniMax going public in Hong Kong in January at roughly $40B valuations each.

• Chinese AI models like DeepSeek and MiniMax have overtaken US rivals in token usage since February, with MiniMax’s M2.5 usage jumping 476% in about a month.
• Chinese labs like MiniMax and Moonshot charge $2–$3 per million output tokens vs. ~$15 for Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.5, a roughly sixfold pricing gap.

The new scoreboard: Nvidia’s Jensen Huang says token production will power the AI economy, and China is building it cheaper. AlibabaBABA

is already leaning in, launching its Token Hub as CEO Eddie Wu warned that billions of AI agents will take on more digital work. With data and geopolitical risks still hanging over the sector, the race to dominate cheap AI is already underway.