A paper on open model adoption and finds Chinese models, led by Qwen, now dominate.
Rohan Paul Twitter · Rohan Paul (@rohanpaul_ai) · 2026-07-04
The ATOM Report, a new academic paper measuring the open language model ecosystem, finds that Chinese models led by Qwen surpassed U.S. models in total downloads in summer 2025, reaching 1.15 billion tracked downloads by March 2026 versus 723 million for U.S. models.
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Extraction
Topics: open-source-modelsai-geopoliticsmodel-adoptionqwendeepseek
Claims
- China surpassed the U.S. in open model downloads in summer 2025.
- By March 2026, Chinese models had 1.15 billion tracked downloads compared to 723 million for U.S. models.
- Qwen became the default base model family for many builders by offering a broad range of useful sizes, especially small, cheap-to-run models.
- DeepSeek leads the very large model category (above 250B parameters) without dominating the overall open model ecosystem the way Qwen does.
- Some U.S. models including GPT-OSS 120B and Nemotron Super 120B show strong adoption momentum when adjusted for model size and age, despite China leading overall.
Key quotes
China passed the U.S. in open model downloads in summer 2025.
By March 2026, Chinese models had 1.15B tracked downloads, while U.S. models had 723M.
Qwen's lead is not just about 1 famous model; it comes from having many useful models across many sizes, especially small ones that people can run cheaply and reuse often.