Even as the United States is embarked on a bitter rivalry with China over the deployment of artificial intelligence, Chinese technology is quietly making inroads into the US market.<\/p>\n
Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the United States.<\/p>\n
These are different from the closed generative AI models that have become household names — ChatGPT-maker OpenAI or Google’s Gemini – whose inner workings are fiercely protected.<\/p>\n
In contrast, “open” models offered by many Chinese rivals, from Alibaba to DeepSeek, allow programmers to customize parts of the software to suit their needs.<\/p>\n
Globally, use of Chinese-developed open models has surged from just 1.2 percent in late 2024 to nearly 30 percent in August, according to a report published this month by the developers’ platform OpenRouter and US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.<\/p>\n
China’s open-source models “are cheap — in some cases free — and they work well,” Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China told AFP.<\/p>\n
One American entrepreneur, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their business saves $400,000 annually by using Alibaba’s Qwen AI models instead of the proprietary models.<\/p>\n
“If you need cutting-edge capabilities, you go back to OpenAI, Anthropic or Google, but most applications don’t need that,” said the entrepreneur.<\/p>\n
US chip titan Nvidia, AI firm Perplexity and California’s Stanford University are also using Qwen models in some of their work.<\/p>\n
– DeepSeek shock –<\/p>\n
The January launch of DeepSeek’s high-performance, low-cost and open source “R1” large language model (LLM) defied the perception that the best AI tech had to be from US juggernauts like OpenAI, Anthropic or Google.<\/p>\n
It was also a reckoning for the United States — locked in a battle for dominance in AI tech with China — on how far its archrival had come.<\/p>\n
AI models from China’s MiniMax and Z.ai are also popular overseas, and the country has entered the race to build AI agents — programs that use chatbots to complete online tasks like buying tickets or adding events to a calendar.<\/p>\n
Agent friendly — and open-source — models, like the latest version of the Kimi K2 model from the startup Moonshot AI, released in November, are widely considered the next frontier in the generative AI revolution.<\/p>\n
The US government is aware of open-source’s potential.<\/p>\n
In July, the Trump administration released an “AI Action Plan” that said America needed “leading open models founded on American values”.<\/p>\n
These could become global standards, it said.<\/p>\n
But so far US companies are taking the opposite track.<\/p>\n
Meta, which had led the country’s open-source efforts with its Llama models, is now concentrating on closed-source AI instead.<\/p>\n
However, this summer, OpenAI — under pressure to revive the spirit of its origin as a nonprofit — released two “open-weight” models (slightly less malleable than “open-source”).<\/p>\n
– ‘Build trust’ –<\/p>\n
Among major Western companies, only France’s Mistral is sticking with open-source, but it ranks far behind DeepSeek and Qwen in usage rankings.<\/p>\n
Western open-source offerings are “just not as interesting,” said the US entrepreneur who uses Alibaba’s Qwen.<\/p>\n
The Chinese government has encouraged open-source AI technology, despite questions over its profitability.<\/p>\n
Mark Barton, chief technology officer at OMNIUX, said he was considering using Qwen but some of his clients could be uncomfortable with the idea of interacting with Chinese-made AI, even for specific tasks.<\/p>\n
Given the current US administration’s stance on Chinese tech companies, risks remain, he told AFP.<\/p>\n
“We wouldn’t want to go all-in with one specific model provider, especially one that’s maybe not aligned with Western ideas,” said Barton.<\/p>\n
“If Alibaba were to get sanctioned or usage was effectively blacklisted, we don’t want to get caught in that trap.”<\/p>\n
But Paul Triolo, a partner at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, said there were no “salient issues” surrounding data security.<\/p>\n
“Companies can choose to use the models and build on them…without any connection to China,” he explained.<\/p>\n
A recent Stanford study published posited that “the very nature of open-model releases enables better scrutiny” of the tech.<\/p>\n
Gao Fei, chief technology officer at Chinese AI wellness platform BOK Health, agrees.<\/p>\n
“The transparency and sharing nature of open source are themselves the best ways to build trust,” he said.<\/p>\n
tu-ll\/kaf\/arp<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Even as the United States is embarked on a bitter rivalry with China over the deployment of artificial intelligence, Chinese technology is quietly making inroads into the US market. Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the United States. These are different from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":21867,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"7","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"left-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"topbottom","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"0","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"jnews_post_split":{"post_split":[{"template":"1","tag":"h2","numbering":"asc","mode":"normal","first":"0","enable_toc":"0","toc_type":"normal"}]},"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[214,997,240,517,144],"class_list":["post-21866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-airdrop","tag-china","tag-tech","tag-us-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21869,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21866\/revisions\/21869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.iq\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}