China: Second Wave of AI Releases

On February 14, 2026, analysts noted a synchronous surge in activity from Chinese AI companies. Alibaba, ByteDance, and DeepSeek released updates to their models (video, chatbots, agents) ahead of the holidays.

The industry has recovered from the "DeepSeek shock" of 2025. While China dumped prices a year ago, it now competes on quality and multimodality. Beijing demonstrates that the US tech blockade has only accelerated the development of the domestic ecosystem.

Source: Reuters