China AI tracker
At least 14 telcos outside Mainland China partner with one of China's AI model developers; DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen are most common.
For a vendor that sells AI models or platforms to telcos, these are accounts where a Chinese model already appears in a deployment or an announced alliance. The count is a floor, because the tracker records only what a public page states.
Main Chinese AI models and how they work with overseas telcos
Which developers' models the telcos use, and how they use them.
Telcos by model developer
Both DeepSeek and Alibaba's Qwen team post model weights on Hugging Face, so a telco can download and run the models itself.
Telcos by how they use Chinese models
Which telco uses which Chinese model?
Each row is a telco and each column a model developer. The color shows how the telco uses the model. Select a cell for the model and its sources. Select a developer name for a definition of its models, or a telco name to open its workforce data in the Workforce Monitor.
A telco name opens its workforce data in a new tab. Telcos outside MTN Consulting's Workforce Tracker have no workforce page, so their names are plain text.
What the Chinese models in the table are
One entry for each developer in the table. Each model name in the table is one member of that developer's family.
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Is a telco or a source missing from the tracker?
Send a link to the page.
How do we count?
What counts
A telco is in the count when it hosts, resells, uses inside its own business or builds on a named Chinese model, at the stage Released, Trial or Live. An alliance with a Chinese AI company that names a model counts from the day it is announced.
What does not count
Models under evaluation, models a telco has withdrawn, restrictions on use, ties to chips only, and pages that do not name a model. Telcos headquartered in Mainland China are outside this count. Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan are four separate places, and Hong Kong telcos appear under Hong Kong.
Limits. Each row records what a page states on its date. It does not show that a service is live today, so check the date beside each source. If a row is missing or wrong, use the contact page.