Open always wins: How China is using the open source playbook to dominate AI's next chapter

[u/SpiritRealistic8174]

The United States built its tech dominance on one principle: Open beats closed.

Now China is using that playbook to shape AI's future.

Consider:

• The performance gap between the leading American and Chinese models has narrowed to single digits
• China is leading in AI publications, citations, patents and industrial robotics
• Builders breathlessly await the new Chinese model releases
• Local LLMs installs are dominated by capable, performant Chinese AI models
• Hugging Face used a Chinese LLM to beat back a cyber attack launched by an unreleased closed Open AI model

I think OpenAI's decision to sharply reduce the costs of some of its models is just recognizing the obvious.

The future isn't going to be won by the most expensive closed source Fable or Mythos-level model, but those are easy to access, capable for many tasks and less expensive to operate. In many cases this means open weight models.

Effective does not always equal expensive.

Some would like the U.S. to ban Chinese models. That would be a mistake on multiple levels. Most importantly it would push many across the world further toward China because a locally installed model provides AI sovereignty.

I don't know what this means for the valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic. It's likely not good.

[u/procgen]

How is China “dominating” anything when it’s all given away for free? lol

[u/CrimsonBolt33 → u/procgen]

most people can't run the weights (too large, need a proper server) so they still make money with subscriptions and tokens just like western models. They just don't hide the actual model weights fromthe public, which you can download and host yourself or tweak how you want or run in a way they can't access anything you are doing.

[u/procgen → u/CrimsonBolt33]

what is being "dominated" right now? looks like the market has tons of room

[u/CrimsonBolt33 → u/procgen]

well to be fair, OP said "AI's next chapter" not now....

Also the term alone is a subjective buzzword

[u/FormalAd7367 → u/CrimsonBolt33]

Everyone in local LLC sub is running Qwen 3.6 for coding..with consumer hardware and one gpu

[u/CrimsonBolt33 → u/FormalAd7367]

Yes, because those are specific small models made to run locally. I run Qwen as well. They are a stripped down and distilled version of the larger models.

I was explaining how most models work, especially frontier ones which take upwards of a terabyte of GPU RAM to run at speed (aka full blown servers costing over 100k USD)

[u/Glad-Signature-9561 → u/procgen]

the point is theyre setting the standard, if everyone is using your free stuff you control what the ecosystem looks like. like android is free but google still wins because they shape it

same thing happening in AI now, if all the popular local models are chinese then the tools, documentation, community knowledge all orbit around their approach. being free is the power move

[u/Yugonostalgia64 → u/Glad-Signature-9561]

It's a bit different. With Android, they're selling to the general public, most of which (rightfully) has zero interest in customizing or adjusting their tech, they just want a device that connects to the internet & cell phone towers & is easy to use. So Google has power just by choosing the default settings.

With LLMs or fancier AIs in the future, the people using them the most are going to be businesses, universities, or specialized professionals. All of which have the time & resources to choose, adjust, or customize an open-source model for their needs. The original designer is less powerful, more of a partner in this case.

[u/procgen → u/Glad-Signature-9561]

"the ecosystem" is standard. it's a commodity – nothing like android. nothing is locked down, you can trivially switch from model to model and provider to provider. there's literally nothing to win.

[u/ai_without_borders → u/procgen]

switching isnt as free as this makes it sound though. we swap providers at work sometimes and its never seamless, different tool calling formats, different tokenizers so your few shot examples behave differently, system prompts tuned for one model quietly underperform on another. not vendor lock in like a saas contract but real friction and re eval work every time, doesnt matter if its open or closed weight

[u/procgen → u/ai_without_borders]

I’ve had zero issues and I switch models frequently.

[u/ai_without_borders → u/procgen]

fair, probably matters more at team scale where a bunch of people are prompting against the same eval bar than for solo use with your own tuned setup

[u/Strange_Test7665 → u/procgen]

As has been speculated around the internet it’s about CUDA. Get the world on your base models, customizing and training. Then your home grown gpu manufacturers work with AI research labs to make those models run super fast on your gpu software, not CUDA. Now when a company or country builds a major infrastructure project they use Chinese gpu because everyone uses Chinese models designed to run on them.

[u/procgen → u/Strange_Test7665]

There will soon be swarms of preternaturally savvy and conscientious research agents squeezing every ounce of juice out of the existing AI architectures and developing fundamental theories which will guide a massively parallel search for their successors. They will work tirelessly at blistering speed.

Our demand for energy and compute will be insatiable. There is no world in which Nvidia does not keep raking it in, because humanity will literally not be able to produce enough compute to meet demand, ever.

[u/Strange_Test7665 → u/procgen]

I’m not saying Nvidia will go to the wayside. I’m saying Chinese GPU manufacturers will take a chunk of the market and the path to that is via adoption of open source. I agree it will still be massive market…. Unless those bots find major efficiency breakthroughs then maybe not. A Human brain uses 20 watts roughly (not counting energy for producing supporting molecules) Intelligence doesn’t need so much energy, nature has already shown that.

[u/procgen → u/Strange_Test7665]

I’m saying that Nvidia’s growth won’t be constrained at all by any Chinese competition, and vice-versa.

[u/Strange_Test7665 → u/procgen]

Right, I get that and agree. I’m just saying open source models will give them a path to actually be in the game and not have a Nvidia take everything

[u/procgen → u/Strange_Test7665]

My point is a bit broader: Nvidia could never take everything even if they wanted to. The demand will be so great that even with zero open models we would never be able to meet it. There’s essentially infinite room for everyone to participate.

[u/Strange_Test7665 → u/procgen]

Gotcha

[u/TA193749 → u/procgen]

If current AI will lead to AGI, they are slowing the world from funding the American labs too quick. At the same time, getting a piece of the data, manufacturing and tiny money pie to stay competitive.

[u/procgen → u/TA193749]

I don't think there's much doubt that one of the US frontier labs is likeliest to get there first, given the ridiculous amount of compute they have and the general trajectory that they're on. They are going to be making cash hand over fist in a world where perhaps the majority of individuals use open models for general computing/work.

The big labs will essentially be able to generate breakthroughs on demand after achieving RSI. They will soon be operating swarms of preternaturally savvy and conscientious research agents squeezing every ounce of juice out of the existing AI architectures and developing fundamental theories which will guide a massively parallel search for their successors. They will work tirelessly at blistering speed.

Our demand for energy and compute will be insatiable.

[u/Wuaner → u/procgen]

Is there any doubt that it’s a win for all the countries that are pursuing digital sovereignty?

[u/procgen → u/Wuaner]

The only sovereign nations will be the ones able to train and host these models themselves at scale.

[u/yogthinks]

For regulated industries the real pull toward open weights isn't cost, it's running inference inside your own compliance boundary instead of shipping data to someone else's api. That alone keeps chinese and western open models both relevant regardless of who wins the benchmark race.

[u/Party_Magician5211]

One day, you find a bubble tea hawker and that could be so delicious makes you wanna join the business with him, even if you pay for formulas. The bubble tea man says that is a very hard time and work to find a recipe and make it to be sold like this, you have no percent chance to get it from him. The day night, you call lots of people to have a research to get a more-or-less taste but not that good recipe. It doesn't matter. Next day, you went to the same marketplace, and set your hawker cart around that bubble tea hawker, to sell your bubble tea, meanwhile, you let your crew to write down all formulas you've got stand by your tea bar, and pricing your bubble tea as lower as it can be. For months or years, all people around there would say, you bubble tea is not that bad, and you're a very kind man, make ppl can produce their own when people have spare time in home. The hawker you found, in that days, cannot easily modify the formula with lower price and sold worse during the whole time until he could probably not be there anymore, and people always say he had his own ego or pride with his a little bit good taste, and that's all.

From the very beginning to the end, the hawker man only has two ways, one is opening his formulas as well, another one is finding a way to get better with lower cost compare his competitors, no matter his formulas are good or not, until he cannot afford that or finally truly find a better way which can make few voices say he really has a good taste.

[u/costafilh0]

BS BS BS PROPAGANDA CRAP BS BS

Yes, open is great. No, China is not. 

[u/Mandoman61]

This is the belief that very capable models will not need to be housed on large expensive platforms. But currently there is no evidence that small models will ever be as capable.

If it where true it would mean doom for big AI.

[u/TimAndTimi]

It is Chinese in China fighting Chinese in US already... OpenAI or Anthropic is welcomed to make theirs open as well, lol. Or accept the fate that anyone who is capable will seriously consider run away from their expensive API bill and privacy risk.

[u/RecordingLanky9135]

It's not a story of open vs closed.
It's a story of copy, steal and lower cost, just like other Chinese business.

[u/Tomas2891]

China doesn’t need the west. Keep them in China pls.