How to access Qwen models without a Chinese phone number?

[AdamXiao-eolab]

I've been exploring Qwen3 and DeepSeek models but ran into the Chinese phone number requirement when trying to sign up for some of the official APIs. If you're outside China, this can be a real hassle.

A workaround I found: ModelHub provides a unified API key that works with Qwen3, DeepSeek-V3/R1, and a bunch of other models — no Chinese phone number needed. Just one API key and you're good to go.

Has anyone else dealt with this? Curious what alternatives people are using.

[richardchen874-sys]

This is a real pain point for developers outside China.

A unified API key can definitely make access to Qwen / DeepSeek much easier, but I think the important things to compare are not only signup convenience, but also:

• model coverage
• OpenAI-compatible API support
• pricing transparency
• rate limits
• latency from non-China regions
• reliability for production workloads

For small AI teams or indie devs, the hard part is usually not just getting the first API key, but keeping access stable once usage starts growing.

Curious what alternatives people are using for Qwen / DeepSeek access outside China.