So we now have a pretty good picture of the state of the frontier AI model makers. US closed source models continue to lead. Google, OpenAI,…

So we now have a pretty good picture of the state of the frontier AI model makers. US closed source models continue to lead. Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic stand well ahead of the pack, and may have signs of recursive self-improvement. xAI has fallen from frontier status for now (though promises to return shortly). Meta re-entered the space today with a not-quite-frontier closed source model, but an approach that suggests that they might be back in the race. All the other US players seem far behind. On the Chinese model front, Alibaba (Qwen), Moonshot (Kimi), MiniMax, Xiaomi (MiMo), Deepseek, and Z (GLM) all still appear to be very much in the race, though the best Chinese models are still 7-9+ months behind released US closed source models. For some of these players, especially Xiaomi and Alibaba, their commitment to open weights appear to be slipping. Outside of China, Mistral seems to have fallen from frontier status.

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Source: Ethan Mollick (X) | 2026-04-09

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