AI Inference Is Entering a Pricing Reset, But Cheaper Models May Not Mean Cheaper AI
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AI inference prices plunged as providers raced for cost leadership this month, prompting U.S. labs to cut rates while Chinese models grew to handle more than half of US-routed OpenRouter traffic, up from roughly a tenth a year earlier, before DeepSeek unexpectedly raised prices. Cheaper inference could drive broader adoption and shift value from models to chips and infrastructure, creating potential opportunities and fundraising interest for crypto-linked infrastructure tokens while raising margin and security pressures for DeFi, DEX and CEX projects integrating AI services.
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- AI inference prices are plunging as model providers battle for cost leadership.
- DeepSeek’s price hikes show the race to the bottom may already be reversing.
- Cheaper AI could drive more usage, shifting value from models to chips and infrastructure.
The AI industry’s next battle isn’t about who has the smartest model. It’s about who can run a task the cheapest. That shift became obvious this month, as U.S. labs slashed prices to hold off cheaper Chinese rivals, only for the cheapest of those rivals, DeepSeek, to turn around and raise its own rates.
Why Cost, Not Just Capability, Now Decides The Market
Chinese open-weight models have been quietly taking over. Reports this year show Chinese providers now handle more than half of all US-routed traffic on OpenRouter, the platform many developers use to compare and access models, up from roughly a tenth a year earlie…
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