China’s open-source dominance threatens US AI lead, US advisory body warns

BEIJING: The dominance of China’s open-source artificial intelligence is creating a “self-reinforcing competitive advantage”, allowing it to challenge U.S. rivals despite restricted access to advanced AI chips, a U.S. congressional advisory body said on Monday.

Driven by their cheaper cost, Chinese large language models from firms including Alibaba, Moonshot and MiniMax now dominate worldwide usage rankings on platforms like HuggingFace and ‌OpenRouter.

Beijing’s push to ⁠deploy AI ⁠throughout a wide range of sectors to upgrade its manufacturing base, factories, logistics networks and robotics is generating real-world data that feeds back into model improvement, the report said.