A model named Owl Alpha has quietly become the most-used artificial intelligence on the OpenRouter platform, processing over 10 trillion monthly tokens to claim the top global ranking on the Hermes platform.
The model is actually LongCat-2.0-Preview from Meituan, a Chinese food delivery and services giant. It is a 1.6 trillion parameter foundation model built entirely on Chinese domestic hardware, without any NVIDIA graphics processing units.
LongCat launched into public testing in late April. It features a 1 million token context window and supports tool-calling for complex tasks. OpenRouter initially offered free access, leading to massive adoption. Usage data shows it has processed trillions of tokens since its release.
Meituan accomplished this training run using between 50,000 and 60,000 domestically produced chips. This represents one of the largest known AI training efforts completed without NVIDIA hardware.
OpenRouter acts as a routing layer, letting developers access multiple AI models through a single API. By launching there, Meituan made its model globally accessible. The free access tier removed friction, driving its rapid growth to the number one position.
For investors, this development challenges the narrative around NVIDIA's market dominance. It also shows the blurring line between technology sectors, as a logistics company produces a top-ranked AI model. The free access model creates competitive pricing pressure on paid AI application programming interfaces.