Beyond ChatGPT: A Practical Guide to the Open AI Models Coming Out of China

For most people, “AI chatbot” still means ChatGPT. That picture is now out of date. Over the past eighteen months, a group of Chinese AI labs has released models that compete with the best American systems on coding, reasoning and long documents, and many of them are cheaper to use, free to try, or published with open weights that anyone can download. For students, developers and small businesses, especially in markets where a $20 monthly subscription is a real expense, this matters. It means more choice, lower costs and less dependence on a single provider. This guide walks through the main model families, what each one is good at, and how to start using them without a credit card or a technical background. Three things have changed.