China's top model now trails America's by three percent.
Bloomberg Intelligence says the gap between the best Chinese and American models is the narrowest it has tracked. On agentic coding DeepSeek's model actually beat Anthropic's, 77.3 against 66.1. Overall it scored 81.1 to Anthropic's 83.4, down from a nine percent gap in May.
Why it mattersChinese models are open and cheap, so a near-tie means a real choice for builders. It also raises the question whether America's chip export controls are still working.
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