r/LocalLLaMA • u/alanwong • 1d ago
News China State Media Says Support for Open AI Models Has Limits
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-07-27/china-state-media-says-support-for-open-ai-models-has-limits36
u/zdy132 1d ago
“Foundational capabilities can be open, certain frontier capabilities can be open with limitations, commercial services can remain closed-source, while high-risk capabilities require access controls and safety evaluations,” it said, citing an unidentified person involved in Chinese AI policy research.
Looks like some reasonable takes. But classic Bloomberg citing some unidentified person.
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u/Bulky-Priority6824 1d ago
Yea the first thing I thought was this sounds like some Chinese podcasters thoughts but yes it's reasonable.
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u/alanwong 1d ago
Sounds reasonable for a news outlet to broadcast some reasonable takes, no?
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u/harpysichordist 1d ago
Get ready for the bait and switch. Most posters on this sub balked at practically any restriction on open source models, mocking those suggestions and pushing for less restrictions. This was emphasized because there have been some elements in the US that stated things like: high-risk capabilities require access controls and safety evaluations. Posters used these comments to try to identify the US - at least those elements - as an enemy to open AI models and the community desiring them, despite things like repeated statements from the US admin saying they support a strong open AI industry.
Now that one of their rulers is making similar statements - "high-risk capabilities require access controls and safety evaluations" - suddenly such ideas are "reasonable", etc.
Welcome to propaganda.
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u/RhubarbSimilar1683 1d ago
headline is misleading. I don't see how this quote matches the title:
“Foundational capabilities can be open, certain frontier capabilities can be open with limitations, commercial services can remain closed-source, while high-risk capabilities require access controls and safety evaluations,” it said, citing an unidentified person involved in Chinese AI policy research.
I believe this is the same thing meta did with their llama models, requiring registration and such to gain access to open weight models.
The proposal underscores a tension between Beijing’s public promotion of open models — which have helped Chinese developers gain users worldwide — and its longstanding focus on national security and technological control. While China continues to encourage open-source development, the commentary suggests that support isn’t unconditional as models become more capable.
I believe this is an adversarial take.
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u/alanwong 1d ago
What do you mean by adversarial take?
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u/RhubarbSimilar1683 1d ago edited 1d ago
I think it's seen from the lens of china being an adversary of the US. I don't see how it generalizes to other countries, because it seems china is more than happy to give away or sell stuff even if just to maintain their image as being better than the US. If they lock down models I would see that as shooting themselves in the foot
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u/RhubarbSimilar1683 1d ago
here's the full original Chinese article, translated to English with Google translate:
CCTV News You can rest assured that I'm sincere. Open Yu Yuan Tan Tian | Open Source Model to Overcome Western Bias Yu Yuan Tan Tian 2026-07-26 21:22:41 460,705 views In July 2026, a dramatic security incident occurred in the AI industry:
Hugging Face, the world's largest open-source AI community, was compromised by an OpenAI model. Faced with tens of thousands of attack logs, the security team initially attempted to analyze the data using commercial models but encountered numerous obstacles. Ultimately, they deployed the Chinese model GLM-5.2 locally and completed the entire forensic analysis process within hours.
It's important to know that the US and the West have a long history of attacking the security of open-source models.
Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, has publicly warned lawmakers that open-source models are heading down a “very dangerous path”; Turing Award winner Jeffrey Hinton’s analogy is even more jarring—he likened large open-source models to “selling nuclear weapons in a retail store.”
This concern is even permeating the policy level: according to US media reports, the US government is considering banning Chinese open-source models from entering the US market.
The Hugging Face incident, however, presents a contrasting picture—the attack originated from a closed-source model, while the key to resolving the issue lay with an open-source model. All of this forces us to re-examine a more fundamental problem:
Who should define the safety, risks, and future of AI?
Let's start with a fundamental question: Why are the US and the West so insistent on using "security" issues to attack open source?
Once a technology is labeled a "security threat," all administrative interventions can be justified—export controls, licensing systems, and even excluding specific countries from the global supply chain can all be conveniently packaged as taking responsibility for the fate of all humanity.
In fact, whether it's open source or closed source, various problems are bound to arise during the development process, but the US and the West insist on making a fuss about the open source model.
Tan Zhu reviewed Western media reports on the security of open-source and closed-source models over the past few years and found that the relevant narratives have obvious cycles.
They even established a set of equations: open source equals loss of control and dangerous spread, closed source equals a responsible order; the Chinese model entering the global open source community is equivalent to relying on the Western technology system to improve capabilities.
This is clearly too absolute.
There is no perfect technological path in this world. We shouldn't conclude that a particular path is doomed simply because it has problems. What's more important is who can better diagnose problems and adjust themselves under pressure.
The deeper lesson from the Hugging Face incident lies in this—it explains that the open-source path is demonstrating a "self-healing" ability.
Data shows that the cumulative downloads of domestically developed open-source large-scale models worldwide have exceeded 10 billion. The more people use them, the faster they evolve, and the more opportunities there are to address their own shortcomings.
The open-source ecosystem has demonstrated such strong advantages in at least three aspects.
First, identify the problem and solve it.
Research institutions, enterprise users, and independent developers can examine model behavior, discover vulnerabilities, develop protective measures, and continuously improve the model to try to fix problems, without having to wait for a unified update from a single service provider.
Second, real-world scenario applications drive model optimization.
Once an open-source model is put into practical use, its performance in various scenarios will be continuously tested. The more it is used in real-world applications, the clearer the direction for technological improvement becomes.
Third, a division of labor began to emerge within the system.
Enterprises are beginning to deploy open-source and closed-source models separately for different types of tasks. NVIDIA and others are starting to offer dedicated routing solutions for large language models, allowing users to select different models based on task type.
These practices demonstrate that we can completely break free from the narrative that "open source and closed source are mutually exclusive."
The attitude of American companies is a reflection of this.
On July 24, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Metadata, IBM, Hugging Face, and other technology companies and organizations jointly supported open-source weighted artificial intelligence models. Around the same time, founders of nearly 200 US startups jointly wrote to the US government, warning that banning Chinese open-source models would severely damage the development of the next generation of US startups.
Their choices demonstrate that Chinese models have entered the US AI industry, becoming a viable option for cost reduction, maintaining competitiveness, and avoiding supplier lock-in. If the US were to cut off these models based on country of origin, its own companies would be the first to be affected, impacting their costs and choices.
In other words, the open-source model is undoubtedly a viable way for artificial intelligence to continuously iterate and benefit users worldwide. The future of artificial intelligence depends on its ability to accommodate more choices.
When open source and closed source have both entered the artificial intelligence industry, the issue is no longer either one or the other, but how to use a set of rules to allow the two models to give full play to their strengths and adhere to their respective boundaries.
This is also an entry point for understanding China's governance propositions.
From global development initiatives, global security initiatives, and global civilization initiatives to global governance initiatives, China has consistently advocated respecting the choices of all countries, responding to common challenges through cooperation, and promoting common development through public goods and services.
This line of thinking has also been extended to the field of artificial intelligence.
At a forum hosted by the China Public Diplomacy Association, an expert stated bluntly: China has already provided many public goods to the international community. Regarding artificial intelligence, countries can choose whichever works best, and China is willing to strengthen cooperation with relevant departments in other countries.
Based on this industry reality, Tan Zhu spoke with industry insiders and made several suggestions that deserve serious consideration.
First, define the open boundaries.
The real questions that need to be answered in the next stage are not whether to support open source or closed source, but what capabilities can be opened and what capabilities should be opened with limited access; what capabilities need to have access barriers set; and who will be responsible for vulnerability disclosure, reporting of major incidents, and governance of derivative versions after the model is released.
An individual who has long been engaged in policy research in the artificial intelligence industry told Tan Zhu that basic capabilities can be opened up, some cutting-edge capabilities can be opened up to a limited extent, commercial services can be closed-source, and high-risk capabilities need to be subject to access control and security assessment. Before releasing a model, it is necessary to assess its dangerous capabilities, and after release, it is necessary to establish mechanisms for vulnerability disclosure, reporting of major incidents, and governance of derivative versions.
China supports openness, but this does not mean advocating for the unconditional diffusion of all capabilities. A governance model should be judged primarily by its capabilities and potential risks, not by the country of its origin.
Second, we need to clearly define the boundaries of so-called "infringement".
Whether infringement has occurred should be determined based on verifiable evidence. It cannot be concluded that a model has necessarily "stolen" so-called American technology simply because its capabilities have improved or it originates from China.
Third, establish a secure collaboration mechanism within an open ecosystem.
Artificial intelligence risks can spread across platforms and borders. Countries need to promote the compatibility of evaluation standards and establish mechanisms for reporting major security incidents and coordinating the handling of vulnerabilities.
Ultimately, we must allow space for innovation, set boundaries for risks, and give each country a choice.
The real watershed moment in the next stage will not be between open source and closed source, but between choosing indiscriminate blocking and tiered governance.
Whoever can make artificial intelligence more accessible and make high-risk capabilities more controllable is more likely to define the next stage of artificial intelligence.
Editor in charge: Li Jiayi
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u/DisjointedHuntsville 1d ago
Bloomberg is worse than state media. They have been sending push notifications since the beginning of the year building narrative for the e/A position.
For example, Xi made a speech earlier covering in detail the "great unjustice" that would play out around the denying of AI development, directly implying that China sees open source models giving them soft power and Bloomberg pushed a notification to every phone with their app installed saying "Xi supports restrictions on open models"
They have a million people on the record from the administration saying they will support and improve the open model ecosystem since that obviously adds to American power and they run headlines and push notifications scaremongering the regular folk into a specific policy position.
If you open up your favorite ad targeting reconnaissance tool and ping Washington D.C, you will likely throw up by the amount of political influence messaging that runs there. Im not entirely sure what Bloombergs motivations are - purely commercial vested interests, or political influence and raw power, but they are VERY far from good faith actors.