AI infrastructure engineers' pay has doubled, with top earners reaching 8 million yuan

AI infrastructure engineers now earn up to 7 to 8 million yuan a year at top model companies, roughly double the earlier level of about 3 million yuan, according to Leiphone and recruiter Lu Bingning.

The pay surge followed DeepSeek R1's release in early 2025, which made GPU utilization and inference cost reduction central to model companies' profits, though only an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the field captures the highest premiums.