/AI7h ago

Analyst Urges Caution On Viral AI Token Usage Chart

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#421Teortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞)
Tim Duffy
Original postTeortaxes▶️ (DeepSeek 推特🐋铁粉 2023 – ∞)#421
Tim Duffy@timfduffy

I think the quoted viral chart should be interpreted cautiously: - The chart shows token count, but prices for the most popular open models are 1-2 OOMs cheaper than closed ones. The table below assumes a 4:1 in:out token ratio and no caching (which will make these numbers overestimates), and shows way higher revenue for US models. - The chart is for the top 9 models only. Looking at the top 100 gives a larger US token share, 14T/w in the US vs 19T in China - OpenRouter is a small share of world tokens. World token supply is something like 6Q/week, OpenRouter serves 36T/week, a bit over 0.5%. Spreadsheet link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/193fu5zRDdpVw0GBaAb5H3juHbExtQOR562xlE-Llm-E/edit?usp=sharing

nxthompson@nxthompson

This is a pretty striking shift toward Chinese models by American AI startups since the start of the year. https://substack.com/@profgmarkets/p-200029541

9:06 AM · Jun 8, 2026 · 5.5K Views
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Tim Duffy@timfduffy

Cheap models make up a large share of OpenRouter tokens, but are a trivial share of revenue. Here's a table with the proportion of tokens and dollars below various blended prices. Models with a blended price <$0.50 make up 71% of tokens but only 10% of revenue.

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