In early June 2026, another heavyweight news emerged in the AI music industry: Suno announced the completion of a $400 million Series D funding round.
Only seven months since the last round of financing, Suno’s post investment valuation has more than doubled, reaching $5.4 billion, firmly securing its position as the world’s number one AI music unicorn.
This is an intriguing timeline. Since 2024, Suno has been embroiled in copyright lawsuits, with Universal Music, Sony, and the German Music Copyright Association accusing it of unauthorized use of copyrighted recordings to train AI models. The number of tracks involved in the lawsuit has increased from an initial 560 to over 61000 by May 2026. Although Warner has already reached a settlement, as of June 2026, Suno’s lawsuits against Universal Music and Sony Music have not been settled.
The capital market, however, has its own judgment. The soaring valuation of Suno indicates that the AI music industry has been recognized as an undeniable future. This judgment is supported by data. CISAC (International Federation of Authors and Composers Associations) predicted at the end of 2024 that the global market for AI generated music and audiovisual content would grow 20 times in the next five years, with revenue reaching 64 billion euros by 2028.
The battlefield of domestic AI music is also bustling. ByteDance, Tencent Music and Netease Cloud Music entered the arena one after another. Kunlun Wanwei launched Mureka, while vertical start-ups such as DeepMusic and Freeweight found their niche in more detailed scenes. The discussion about who is the “Chinese version of Suno” has never stopped.
Amidst the hustle and bustle, the number of AI songs is expanding at an astonishing pace. According to data from streaming platform Deezer, in April 2026, nearly 75000 AI songs were added daily, accounting for 44% of its daily submissions, skyrocketing from an average of 10000 in January to 75000. However, the playback rate of these AI songs was only 1% to 3%.
Is AI music a ‘false prosperity’ as numbers soar and playing gets cold at the same time? Who is most likely to become the next Suno among domestic players?
01. Domestic AI Music: Three Types of Players, Three Ways of Living
In the past year, Tencent Music, NetEase Cloud Music, ByteDance, Kunlun World Wide, MiniMax and other groups entered the arena.
Each participant has their own purpose, some consider AI music as an ecological patch, some consider it as a core business, and some search for increments in vertical scenarios. Roughly speaking, there is currently a pattern of three types of players coexisting in China.
The first category is products backed by large technology companies, such as “Tencent Music · Morning Star” under Tencent Music, “Sponge Music” under ByteDance, and “Netease Skytone” under Netease. The commonality among these platforms is that AI music is a sideline, more like a “traffic diversion” product.
Among them, Tencent Qimingxing adopts a point pricing system, with 10 yuan and 500 points, which can generate approximately 5 songs. Daily login also gives 188 points, which is very restrained in commercialization.
Byte sponge music is completely free and can be directly used as BGM generator for Tiktok creators. Positioning is more like a traffic tool, not primarily aimed at making money.
NetEase’s Tianyin also adopts a points system, with daily login earning 5 points, in addition to task reward points. Creating a song consumes about 3 points, but there is no other recharge channel and it also follows a free strategy.
The logic behind the entry of major companies is highly consistent, relying on existing user base and distribution capabilities to integrate AI music into their own ecosystem, retain users, and expand scenarios. They do not monetize through AI music itself, so they are generally free or low threshold for users.
The second type is large model manufacturers such as Kunlun Wanwei and MiniMax. Unlike big companies, this type of player uses AI music as a means of commercialization, developing their own models, modifying products, and actively going global. It is currently the closest type of business form to Suno in China.
Mureka, a subsidiary of Kunlun Wanwei, was launched in August 2024 and has now been iterated to version 9. Its business model is B-end open API and C-end membership subscription. C-end members charge 88 yuan/month and can generate up to 180 pieces of music. Paying users directly enjoy commercial usage rights. Looking at the pricing alone, Mureka is higher than Suno, who pays $10 per month (approximately 70 RMB) and an average of $8 per month for a package. They can exchange up to 500 pieces per month, with a lower price per piece.
In terms of business data, according to Kunlun Wanwei, as of November 2025, Mureka’s annualized revenue is approximately $12 million, achieving positive gross profit for the first time. It is also the first company in China to publicly announce that its AI music business is generating positive gross profit.
MiniMax Music combines two modes, with its latest model Music-2.6 having a free usage quota, giving away 10000 soundbars per month and consuming 300 soundbars per song; After the Shengbei is consumed, if you choose to subscribe as a member, it costs 36 yuan per month.
The third type is vertical startup companies, such as DeepMusic (Chord Faction), Quwan Technology (Tianpu Music), and Freestyle (Sound Tide). They have neither the traffic of big companies nor the technology of big model manufacturers, and can only bet on a differentiated route.
For example, under the Free Volume brand, Yinchao follows the path of self-developed full chain and external connection to other models. Currently, it mainly operates on a subscription basis, with a weekly membership fee of 16 yuan; Monthly membership is 42 yuan; Annual membership is 288 yuan.
However, companies like Pu Le AI do not have self-developed models and rely on integrating mainstream models such as Suno, Mureka, MiniMax, and Udio to create model integration and service platforms.
Three types of players, three ways of living.
Tencent ByteDance and NetEase do not rely on AI music to make money, but they must occupy this position and ensure that they have cards in hand when the track erupts. Startup companies are betting on niche opportunities that big companies don’t value, and if they do it deep enough, they can survive. The big model manufacturers are the closest to Suno in terms of technology and business, but ‘proximity’ does not mean ‘being able to win’.
02. Tested: Has domestic AI music caught up with Suno?
In order to have a more intuitive understanding of the performance of various AI music products, we selected several representative products in China – Sponge Music 5.2 (Byte) from the large technology company camp, Mureka V9 (Kunlun Wanwei) and MiniMax Music-2.6 (MiniMax) from the large model manufacturer camp, and Music Trend V3 (Freescale) from the vertical startup company camp, along with the reference frame Suno V5.5, for a horizontal evaluation.
The instruction is unified as: Generate a Chinese pop song with the theme of “Remembering Youth, Recalling Years and Friends’ Summers, with Regrets and Warmth”. The main song is lyrical and gentle, accompanied by piano and guitar. The lyrics naturally include specific scenes such as the playground, desks, summer, bicycles, and streetlights. The chorus expresses emotional outburst and uplift, expressing reluctance and emotion towards that time, with the addition of string instruments and minimal electronic drums. Vocal requirements: Male voice, gentle but powerful, clear Chinese pronunciation.
After the generation of the five songs, “AIX Finance” conducted small-scale research on multiple AI musicians and enthusiasts. AI musician Bai Bai believes that overall, Suno and Mureka are the best, with the lowest music trend; But another music teacher with over ten years of experience, Cha Cha, gave the following order: Suno, Mureka, MiniMax, Music Trend, Sponge Music. Although there are differences in the specific ranking, regardless of AI musicians, traditional music teachers, or enthusiasts, Suno has always been ranked first.
During the evaluation process, all five platforms performed well in terms of generation speed and completion, with the gap mainly appearing in the more challenging dimensions of arrangement, vocals, and lyrics.
Let’s talk about arrangement and vocals first, Suno is still the ceiling in this dimension.
Tea Tea believes that Suno has the best arrangement, with standardized song form, reasonable tonality, clear paragraphs, and distinct contrast between the main and chorus. Bai Bai also ranked Suno’s arrangement first, believing that Suno’s arrangement has the most layered feel, with “natural progression of rhythm and emotion”.
Another AI musician, Ajie, also said that Suno is the best, but Mureka’s technical foundation is not weak, but the latter’s style solidification is a fatal problem. In this evaluation, the instruction leans towards youth pop songs, but it generates a jazz and R&B flavor.
Ajie explained that this is Mureka’s inertia, as it excels in the Chinese pop style of R&B music like singer Lee Joo cheol, but it is also prone to “skewing” other styles of instruction to its familiar taste.
However, it should be noted that Mureka has a hidden advantage in its ability to pass censorship. The songs it generates can be easily processed and pass the copyright detection of the music platform’s library, indicating that the originality is still acceptable, while Suno’s songs are often difficult to pass. This is crucial for users who want to distribute and commercialize their works.
As for the performance of sponge music arrangement, the respondents described it as “luck”, with mixed results and a strong mechanical flavor in electronic music; Tea Tea believes that the overall AI sense of the music trend is too heavy, with pitch swirling around and a strong sense of technology, which is not realistic, but it is slightly better than sponge music.
Regarding the ranking of human voices, Tea Tea believes that MiniMax’s “If Time Echoes” is the best, with a textured and realistic sound; Suno’s’ That Summer’s Bike ‘has a wide vocal range and ranks second; The third is Mareka’s’ Supplementary Sign ‘, which features diverse vocal tones and a wide vocal range; The level of the music trend ‘Galaxy Line’ is in the middle, with no highlights; Finally, there is SpongeBob Music’s “Old Summer Letter”, which has issues with inaccurate pronunciation, unclear pronunciation, and difficulty in hearing.
Looking at the lyrics again, there are highlights in domestic production, but AI is still far from “good lyrics”.
Bai Bai believes that Suno’s lyrics have the most complete structure, with clear main song, pre chorus, chorus, and plot. The four lines of the chorus all start with “that summer”, forming memory points.
Ajie believes that Mureka’s choice of words is the most exquisite, and the imagery of “supplementary signature” is ingenious. Single sentences such as “the recklessness at that time was blown into a medal by the wind” and “like a paper kite that was broken but still cared about” have a certain literary quality. But the problem is also obvious, the sentence structure is strange, and a large number of spaces make the lyrics sound like they are memorizing words, with an overall tendency towards stacking and lacking the catchy and catchy qualities that pop songs should have.
It is worth mentioning that MiniMax has strong lyric ability, with significantly higher word quality than Sponge and Sound Tide, and even slightly better overall punctuation arrangement than Mureka. Tea Tea even ranks MiniMax first in lyric ranking.
However, Ajie believes that MiniMax works also use the imagery of “cicada chirping” that is not included in the prompt words but is common in AI, and the AI flavor is still very obvious.
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Lyrics generated by five apps. The poster is generated by AI, with repeated lyrics and omitted paragraphs
Sponge music is filled with too many imagery, with school uniforms, desks, cicadas, bicycles, streetlights, soda, test papers, and love poems all stuffed into the lyrics, which are too rich but lack space. Ajie said that this type of intention is exactly what AI commonly uses, and the AI flavor is quite serious. The imagery of the “Milky Way Line” sound trend is good, but in terms of specific word choice and sentence construction, it is still very template based.
Bai Bai believes that AI still has a long way to go in terms of lyrics ability. At present, his way of producing AI music is to write his own lyrics and have Suno arrange and perform the vocals. “It’s impossible to produce good works with just one instruction
From the evaluation results, it can be seen that several domestic products have their own advantages: Mureka has strong audit capabilities and runs the fastest in commercialization; Sponge music is free and cost-effective; The price of the music trend is relatively friendly, and the entire chain is self-developed with unique features; MiniMax excels in both vocals and lyrics.
But each has its own shortcomings: Mureka’s weakness is the fixed style and lack of memory points; Sponge music arrangement is unstable and difficult to commercialize; The overall AI flavor of Sound Tide is obvious; MiniMax still has room for improvement in arrangement. In terms of core listening experience, they still have a significant gap compared to Suno. A more direct statement would be, ‘Well made AI music is usually created by Suno.’. ”
However, the technological gap can be caught up with through time and iterations. The ultimate decision may not be whose model is stronger. The Chinese music market has its unique characteristics, such as short video driven consumption habits, immature copyright environment, and low willingness to pay on the C-end, which may change the form of “AI music platforms” in China.
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