Who Leads China’s “Hundred-Model War”? Inside the 2024 Large Model Competition

The large‑model sector is a high‑resource, high‑entry‑barrier arena, and the so‑called “Hundred‑Model War” in China represents a prolonged contest of massive investment and consumption.

First half of the war focuses on the clash of resources and technology. Companies must secure long‑term talent pipelines, high‑quality data, and massive compute power, while maintaining continuous R&D spending to build technological barriers.

Second half of the war shifts to commercial execution and customer ROI. Successful firms create closed‑loop business models that generate tangible value for downstream users, thereby reinforcing competitive advantage.

The 2024 report combines official model registration lists, benchmark results, and market surveys to evaluate ten general‑purpose large‑model providers: Baidu, Tencent, 360, Alibaba, Huawei, iFlytek, SenseTime, ByteDance, Zhipu AI, and Baichuan Intelligent. Using a “Five‑Force” framework—team strength, product strength, infrastructure strength, ecosystem strength, and development strength—the report quantifies each vendor’s overall competitiveness.

Key findings :

Baidu and Huawei lead the industry, outperforming the average on all five dimensions.

Tencent, 360, Alibaba, and iFlytek excel in product capability.

SenseTime and ByteDance rank high in infrastructure investment and construction.

Zhipu AI, as a startup, shows strong product innovation and solid ecosystem and development scores.

Baichuan Intelligent, another newcomer, still has room to improve its overall competitiveness.

These results illustrate a differentiated competitive landscape where each vendor leverages its unique strengths, and sustained resource support combined with effective commercial strategies will determine long‑term leadership.