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China’s open-source bet

MIT Tech Review Caiwei Chen April 21, 2026
China’s open-source bet
AI Summary— plain English for professionals

# China's Open-Source Bet Chinese AI companies are giving away their AI models for free as downloadable packages, letting any developer customize and use them however they want—a stark contrast to American tech giants like OpenAI, which keep their AI locked behind paid services. This approach could let Chinese companies build a massive ecosystem of products and services faster, since developers aren't constrained by licensing fees or usage limits. It's essentially a bet that dominance comes from having the most people building with your technology, not from controlling access to it.

Silicon Valley AI companies follow a familiar playbook: Keep the secret sauce behind an API, and charge for every drop. China’s leading AI labs are playing a different game: They ship models as downloadable “open-weight” packages. This lets developers adapt the models and run them on their own hardw

Read full article on MIT Tech Review

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