Coinbase Slashes AI Costs by 50% with Chinese Models, Putting Pressure on Western Labs
Coinbase has made a significant shift to Chinese AI models, reducing its AI spending by 50% despite increasing token usage, and other companies like Snowflake are following suit. This move is putting pressure on Western AI labs to revisit their pricing strategies, particularly as some are preparing for initial public offerings (IPOs).
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong is switching his company to Chinese AI models like GLM 5.2 and Kimi 2.7. An automated routing system picks the best model for each request based on task and price, and better caching pushed the hit rate from 5 to 60 percent. Coinbase has cut its AI spending in half even as token usage keeps climbing. The article Coinbase joins the rush to Chinese AI models as Western labs face a pricing stress test appeared first on The Decoder.