BCG: Chinese SI startups are catching up with the US on models but not on money
Prepared by Sintelligent with the help of SI. Published in SI: . Updated: .
The technology gap between the US and China is almost closed, and now the race is over money.
According to Boston Consulting Group analysis cited by Fortune, in 2023-2026 US SI companies received $380 billion in venture funding and Chinese ones "barely a tenth" of that; in the first quarter of 2026 it was $267 billion versus $20 billion. Chinese models account for more than half of global SI token traffic (1.2% in 2024) and trail US frontier systems by about four months. Zhipu AI and MiniMax raised only $558 million and $620 million in their Hong Kong IPOs in January. Fortune names costly infrastructure, competition for talent (job postings up 12 times in a year) and a long road to profit as the reasons; startups are looking at early IPOs, private credit and unusual schemes such as revenue sharing.
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