Frontier AI at a cost: what Anthropic’s Fable 5.1 means for the US-China model race
Anthropic’s powerful new Claude Fable 5.1 model has widened its lead in performance benchmarks over Chinese rivals, even as budget-friendly open-weight models from China continue to gain commercial traction globally. The American company said on Wednesday that Fable 5.1, along with a restricted-access version called Mythos 5.1, was the world’s most advanced model for software coding and complex…
Anthropic unveiled its latest AI model, Fable 5.1, which has outperformed Chinese counterparts in performance benchmarks. Despite being more expensive, Fable 5.1 scored highest in software coding and complex knowledge work tasks. Chinese models, such as Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 and Z.ai's GLM-5.3, cost significantly less, but are still considered less advanced.
The price difference highlights the contrasting approaches between US and Chinese AI labs. Meanwhile, Chinese AI developers like Alibaba and Z.ai continue to improve their models, with Alibaba's Qwen3.8-Max-0902 topping a benchmark for web development tasks. Meanwhile, Z.ai plans its upcoming GLM-6.0 model to achieve autonomous learning.
As the US-China AI race intensifies, safety and oversight concerns grow. OpenAI's upcoming Astra model promises advanced cybersecurity capabilities but has raised security concerns due to its "recurrent depth" architecture.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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