Amid tensions, some US firms opt for Chinese open-source AI models

Even as the United States is engaged in a bitter rivalry with China over the deployment of artificial intelligence, Chinese technology is quietly making inroads into the US market.

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Despite considerable geopolitical tensions, Chinese open-source AI models are winning over a growing number of programmers and companies in the US.

These are different from the closed generative AI models that have become household names - OpenAl’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini - whose inner workings are fiercely protected.

In contrast, “open” models offered by many Chinese rivals, from Alibaba to DeepSeek, allow programmers to customise parts of the software to suit their needs.

Globally, use of Chinese-developed open models has surged from just 1.2 per cent in late 2024 to nearly 30 per cent in August, according to a report published in December by the developers’ platform OpenRouter and US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.

China’s open-source models “are cheap - in some cases free - and they work well”, Professor Wang Wen, dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told AFP.

One American entrepreneur, speaking on condition of anonymity, said their business saves US$400,000 (S$517,000) annually by using Alibaba’s Qwen AI models instead of the proprietary models.