4 Best Free Chinese LLM APIs (Nov 2026): DeepSeek V4.1, Qwen 2.5 & SiliconFlow (1,000 RPM)

1. Overview: Top Free Chinese LLM Providers

2. DeepSeek V4.1 Flash & DeepSeek-R1: Free Access Blueprints

DeepSeek has set the benchmark for open-source AI. Instead of running heavy quantization locally with Ollama (which requires high-end VRAM), use these cloud endpoints:

A. NVIDIA NIM (DeepSeek V4.1 Flash)

NVIDIA hosts DeepSeek V4.1 Flash on enterprise HGX H100 clusters. Every new developer account receives 1,000 free inference credits upon email signup.

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(
    base_url="https://integrate.api.nvidia.com/v1",
    api_key="nvapi-YOUR_KEY_HERE"
)

response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="deepseek-ai/deepseek-v4.1-flash",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Explain quantum decoherence simply."}],
    temperature=0.6,
)
print(response.choices[0].message.content)

B. Chutes.ai & Cloudflare (DeepSeek-R1 Full MoE)

For chain-of-thought mathematical reasoning, Chutes.ai provides a zero-setup OpenAI-compatible endpoint hosting the full 671B parameter DeepSeek-R1 model without credit card verification.

3. Alibaba ModelScope: Free Qwen 2.5 Coder 32B

Alibaba's Qwen 2.5 Coder has emerged as one of the premier open models for software engineering, rivaling proprietary commercial options on coding benchmarks.

Through Alibaba's ModelScope Free Inference API, developers receive 2,000 Requests Per Day with no billing setup:

• Endpoint: https://api-inference.modelscope.cn/v1
• Recommended Model: Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct
• Context Window: Up to 131,072 tokens with native Fill-In-The-Middle (FIM) support.

# Setup ModelScope with Cursor or Cline
export OPENAI_BASE_URL="https://api-inference.modelscope.cn/v1"
export OPENAI_API_KEY="YOUR_MODELSCOPE_SDK_TOKEN"
# Set model name: Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct

4. SiliconFlow: The 1,000 RPM Free Tier Champion

SiliconFlow (siliconflow.cn) operates the highest free-tier rate limits tracked in our database. While most providers throttle free requests to 5–15 RPM, SiliconFlow provides:

• 1,000 Requests Per Minute (RPM)
• 50,000 Tokens Per Minute (TPM)
• Free hosted models: deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-32B, Qwen/Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct, and BAAI/bge-large-zh-v1.5.

5. Zhipu AI (Z.ai): GLM-5.3-Flash with Web Search

Zhipu AI provides the GLM-5.3-Flash model completely free via its BigModel platform (open.bigmodel.cn). It features native search-grounding and tool-calling capabilities:

# Zhipu AI OpenAI-Compatible API
curl https://open.bigmodel.cn/api/paas/v4/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_ZHIPU_API_KEY" \
  -d '{
    "model": "glm-5.3-flash",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Latest AI news summary"}],
    "tools": [{"type": "web_search", "web_search": {"enable": true}}]
  }'

6. Integrating Chinese Free APIs with Cursor, Claude Code, and Aider

Connect your preferred local IDE or terminal coding assistant to these free endpoints:

Cursor IDE Integration

1. Open Cursor → Settings → Models.
2. Toggle Override OpenAI Base URL to ON.
3. Enter SiliconFlow (https://api.siliconflow.cn/v1) or ModelScope (https://api-inference.modelscope.cn/v1).
4. Paste your API Token and add model Qwen/Qwen2.5-Coder-32B-Instruct.

Claude Code CLI (Via Free OpenRouter Gateway)

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://openrouter.ai/api/v1"
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY="your_openrouter_free_key"
export CLAUDE_MODEL="deepseek/deepseek-r1:free"

claude

7. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)