Chinese AI Now Leads Global API Calls. Europe Must Choose. Chinese AI models now account for 61% of token consumption on OpenRouter, with MiniMax's M2 alone processing 1.7 trillion weekly tokens. For European founders and CTOs, this is no longer a theoretical debate. The binary trap — adopt and risk dependency, or abstain and fall behind — is now a live operational decision. ## What happened in China As of late February 2026, Chinese-built models crossed a threshold that would have seemed implausible two years ago: for the first time, API calls to Chinese AI models surpassed those to US models on global platforms. OpenRouter data published on February 24, 2026 shows Chinese models at 61% of total token consumption on the platform. MiniMax's M2 model sat at the top, processing approximately 1.7 trillion weekly tokens. Chinese models have taken disproportionate market share particularly in agentic flows — the…