Rubbish Check
CNBC Finance · 17 September 2026
source“OpenAI and Anthropic are making 10 times more revenue than all Chinese AI models combined, research group Rhodium says”
R2/ 10
Lightly altered
Rubbish Rating — 1 = base fact, 10 = pure rubbish
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In short
Rubbish Talk rates CNBC's claim that OpenAI and Anthropic earn "10 times more revenue than all Chinese AI models combined" a 2/10, because the maths checks out almost exactly against Rhodium Group's own figures and the headline echoes the primary source's own framing.
The Verdict
Base fact, lightly altered. The 10x figure is arithmetically sound and lifted straight from Rhodium's own language, not spun by CNBC. The one omission is that the headline doesn't flag the data is a summer snapshot while Chinese ARR is climbing fast, a caveat the article does disclose lower down.
What actually happened
Rhodium Group published estimates comparing annual recurring revenue (ARR) across major AI labs. All of China's AI models combined generate only about 10% of the revenue reported for OpenAI and Anthropic, based on reports using annual recurring revenues, an industry metric that annualises a recent monthly figure. Rhodium's own report used near-identical framing, describing Chinese ARR as "around 10% of the recently reported levels of OpenAI and Anthropic."
Key facts
- OpenAI generated $40 billion in ARR, Anthropic $65 billion, totalling $105 billion.
- DeepSeek's ARR was $500 million, MiniMax $800 million, Moonshot $1 billion, Z.ai $1.8 billion, ByteDance $4 billion, and Alibaba $2.4 billion, summing to roughly $10.5-10.7 billion, a ratio confirmed by a separate outlet's figure of "around $10.7 billion" total Chinese ARR.
- $105B ÷ ~$10.5B is almost exactly 10x, so the headline's multiple is not rounded up or dramatised.
- Valuation-to-revenue ratios were estimated at 163x for DeepSeek and 50x for Moonshot, versus 34x for OpenAI and 21x for Anthropic, the real story Rhodium is flagging: a financing mismatch, not just a revenue gap.
What to watch for
The article itself notes the estimate is a lagging snapshot: the Rhodium analysis could reference only the latest available figures from this summer, and usage of Chinese AI models has skyrocketed from low levels earlier this year, with Z.ai raising its year-end ARR forecast to $3 billion from $2.4 billion. Watch whether the next Rhodium update narrows the 10x gap, and whether Moonshot's or DeepSeek's pending IPO filings force a repricing of those stretched valuation multiples.
About this scoreThe R-Score is Rubbish Talk's editorial opinion on how far a headline's framing sits from what the underlying facts support. It is a judgement about presentation and emphasis, not an allegation that any outlet has acted dishonestly. Every figure we rely on is linked under Receipts so you can check it yourself.
