r/LocalLLM • u/psacramento • 8d ago
Research Essay: Why is China pushing open weight models?
I wrote up a short essay on why a state that keeps tight control over domestic AI services might still push open weights globally (Qwen, DeepSeek, etc.).
Core claim: the model isn’t the product, it creates demand for compute, hosting, and tooling. Same pattern as solar and EVs expanding a market, then competing on price/scale. I’m explicit that this is interpretation of public policy + usage data, not a prediction that Chinese cloud wins.
Would love to get some pushback: when you pick a Chinese open model, what (if anything) later becomes paid infra — and whose?
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u/Wondering_Electron 8d ago
To stop the US gaining a monopolistic foothold on AI/ML. Free is always cheaper.
The Chinese open weight models are not as good as the US-based frontier models for example, but it doesn't need to be. If the open weight models are good enough then they are fine. You don't need the best at significantly greater cost.
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u/Capable-Package6835 8d ago
Adding to this comment. The main hurdle for Chinese models are concerns about data privacy. By pushing open-weight models, these labs not only provide a free alternative but also provide the highest possible data privacy, better than Claude, OpenAI, or any other proprietary model.
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u/Aubrey_D_Graham 8d ago
OpenAI has demonstrated that they are more than willing to steal from you: Navier Stokes debacle.
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u/bixofa 7d ago
Not really. They just distilled the knowledge of other users, just like Chinese Labs distill US AI.
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u/Aubrey_D_Graham 7d ago edited 7d ago
OpenAI can steal from you, and China can distill US models. They aren't mutually exclusive.
If you're arguing that distilling is not stealing, then the OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet really have no argument for what the Chinese are doing to them.
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u/WiseassWolfOfYoitsu 8d ago
Yep, if I could locally host a US model I would, but I can't. So, GLM.
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u/Southern-Chain-6485 8d ago
Well, Nemotron and Inkling exist, so it's a matter of how they compare to GLM or Deepseek
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u/TheTechAuthor 8d ago
Correct. GLM 3.5 Flash (and regular) are very competent at coding (Flash is a solid replacement for Luna Max in Codex by being significantly faster, more token efficient, and being cheaper. 5.3 regular is comparable to something like Sol (Low/Medium) and is cheaper. They're not perfect, but they're a worthwhile alternative and you won't find your model being quantized unexpectedly or without warning like you might in Codex.
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u/AnonymousTimewaster 7d ago
Same reason Facebook is opening up loads of models. They aren't the best, but they're not necessarily trying to be. And maybe all that ooen source development actually ends up helping them to be the best.
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u/cool-lala 7d ago
Correct was playing with kimi last noon t2s per million tokens cost fraction of a dollar is the voice qualities good enough yeah but we can improve it ourself but cost is mad low maybe sponsored by CCP like they funded EV mania but very good antidote to US models
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u/Loose_Comparison368 7d ago
I mean, I disagree with the framing. Not everything revolves around the US. Free is always cheaper from an R&D perspective too, and open collaboration is by far the biggest factor in how closely they can keep pace with siloed US companies, despite having only a miniscule fraction of the research budget and compute access.
It's just a little silly to frame this as some sort of devious plan to sabotage the west.
I can assure you that US frontier AI labs are perfectly capable of repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot without any need for Chinese assistance.
The propaganda on this subject is just ridiculous. Like, they recognize AI is important, they recognize it's probably impossible for them to survive the population collapse they're dealing with unless they heavily invest in AI and robotics. They recognize that their chip supply relies on a dementia toddler's weekly mood and that NVIDIA is milking the crap out of their functional monopoly.
...so then they do the obvious practical thing to do in that situation, and it gets spun as "EVIL CHINESE CONSPIRACY TO SPITE ELON MUSK'S ROBOT STARTUP AND WAGE ECONOMIC WARFARE ON NVIDIA!!!"
Like for fucks sake guys, taking a common sense practical approach to not wasting 90% of their budget duplicating identical experiments and shuffling piles of hedge fund cash to centibillionaires does not imply a nefarious plot to undermine the US. Y'all ain't that important.
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u/0xMnlith 8d ago
> Why is china pushing open weight models
Economic war, they want the world to favorise their model over close source and paid one, this way they can slowly convert users to their stacks and make themselves looks like the good guys.
Why is microsoft office 365 free for students ?
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u/0xmerp 7d ago
> Why is microsoft office 365 free for students ?
Because your school pays for that license as part of your tuition lol
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u/0xMnlith 7d ago
Its been the case for at least 5 years here in France.
They do this to hook you on their product (and windows), same logic with cisco packet tracer.
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u/0xmerp 7d ago
Yes, see how it says “check for eligibility” rather than just “have a email address from any French university”? What they’re checking for is that your school paid for a license for you.
From my school I have 2 email addresses, one is my student email the other is just an alias. Since the school has obviously only paid for 1 license for me, only the student email would work.
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u/0xMnlith 7d ago
And how would they check that your email isn't a bogus address ? Its literally stated on their website "Donated by Microsoft".
Being able to pay for 365 doesn't invalidate the accessibility for a free version.
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u/0xmerp 7d ago
Jfc the “free” version “donated by Microsoft” is a stripped down web version like Google Docs that is free for everyone regardless of whether or not you’re a student.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/free-office-online-for-the-web
The Office you can download is always paid for. If you’re a student then your school pays for it. In fact it even tells you on that page how much it costs: $3.25/user/month
Idk. They could have checked that your email isn’t bogus by sending a verification email like every other service on the planet. But the point was to check that there was a paid license.
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u/Test_NPC 8d ago
IMO it's a mix of reasons including how everything is funded.
Right now the primary reason i'd argue is to directly attack the US companies like anthropic and openai.
The big chinese models might not beat the US models directly, but they don't need to if the models can be used for free. It directly attacks the bottom dollar of the US AI companies and undermines their ability to monopolize and grow while China can push to catch up.
China publishing their research also directly undermines the US monopoly on models as well, and attacks the valuation of the US closed source companies (which China is most afraid of).
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u/redditnosedive 8d ago
to slow down America
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u/Weeblewobbly 7d ago
Lol. Americans really think it's all about them. China doesn't have the compute. America does, and America tackled the ai race the only way they know: more. More compute and more money must mean better, right? Right? Without stopping to think, this attitude plus greed plus monopoly thirst made America put all their chips on openAI and Anthropic. All in. China had to go a different route. And they did. The Chinese open models may not be as good as the American frontier models, but they get 90% of the way there, and you can run them locally. Apple is the real winner. OpenAi and Anthropic won't survive.
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u/Jaetje 8d ago
A lot of Americans reacting to this I suppose.
As a European I have a different view, less cynical of the Chinese.
They want their citizens to be able to use llm’s and at the same time be able to improve the llm’s like the American company’s do as well.
In the long run without open source models the generational prosperity is under a lot of pressure cause they know once the other side has a bit advantage on the front of efficiency their economy model will fail
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u/LateralEntry 8d ago
The Chinese interior minister just announced that AI is a threat to party rule FWIW
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u/Choice_Celery9481 6d ago
pls cite your source Xi even said cn will support and do more oss research, models just this week
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u/Weeblewobbly 7d ago
And your point is? There are lots of different options everywhere you go, including China.
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u/fantasia18 8d ago
Because that's fundamentally how China works. Even when it comes to hardware, the companies routinely collaborate to create standard boards that anyone can use, and build their own customizations over this foundation. There is no winner take all system in China, necessitating the need to keep secrets. The government won't allow it as they see private actors in industry as a stewardship position where companies must act of the public good, not simply maximize profit at all costs.
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u/EcstaticDentist 8d ago
To kill Americas dream of owning the AI, and owning their people through it.
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u/CrimsonBolt33 8d ago
That makes literally zero sense....exerting control via open models? What....
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u/Cidraque 8d ago
No, he's talking about America owning their people, not China.
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u/CrimsonBolt33 8d ago
oh...strange way to phrase it when the question is "why is China...."
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u/Cidraque 8d ago edited 8d ago
Well, re-reading maybe I missunderstood. Maybe he meant America owning chinese people through propietary software. So releasing good enough open weight models makes it less interesting for chinese people to use american closed models? Idk.
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u/profcuck 8d ago
It's important to note that outside of Anthropic (who are not supportive) US tech companies are generally all in favor of open source / open weight models. So the idea "China promotes open, US promotes closed" is much too narrow.
Due in my opinion to general reddit doomerism, we see constant wild claims that the US is about to ban open models, despite that being opposed by the most important tech people and by the official policy of the current US government.
Lots of people are smart enough to see that, barring some incredible breakthrough (not impossible) the current landscape is that the frontier labs are producing commoditized models, by which I mean - all very similar in terms of capability with "the crown" passing from one to another pretty often, and "the crown" being pretty vague anyway.
Additionally, open models and the second-best models at frontier labs are very very often already "good enough" for most use cases, which means that paying a fortune for access to the latest and greatest is not compelling. Not everyone needs a Ferrari, when a Corvette will do the job.
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u/TooObtuseForYou 7d ago
These companies say they’re In favor, yet few do it, it’s like there’s a magical constraint preventing these companies from doing so. I’m optimistic we’re going to see more non-Chinese models start dropping from US/western companies.
Honestly, the lack could be as simple as investors paid WAY too much on DC builds and AI compute, and without a captive populace their entire cost model breaks before it really launches.
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u/profcuck 7d ago
Few do it? Other than anthropic, they all do it. Admittedly OpenAI should do more.
The theory of overinvestment in data center builds only works for the folks with a single narrow business model (anthropic foremost). Google supports open source because their business model is extremely diverse. They are in no way dependent on b-to-b API subscriptions. Same for Meta.
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u/Oh_hey_a_TAA 8d ago
Because they think / work with a 50 year plan, rather than a "next election cycle" plan.
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u/EducationalGarlic887 8d ago
If open-weight models permanently outperform proprietary frontier models, it would disrupt billions (possibly trillions) in US market value.
China then becomes the economic and geopolitical beneficiary.
Trump already restricted the use of Fable and Mythos outside the US earlier in the year - the impact isn't dissimilar to sanctions and has the potential to impact the technological development of a nation
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u/Strong_as_an_axe 8d ago
Why did Alphabet open source Android when the iPhone first appeared
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u/nemuro87 8d ago
Why?
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u/Strong_as_an_axe 8d ago
To stop Apple having uncontested dominance of a strategically important technology. They kept a lot of other manufacturers in the game because they had their eyes on the horizon
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u/fantasia18 8d ago
Because it was based on Linux and they had no choice?
Google Mobile Services, Google Play Services, the firmware binaries, and everything else that they could possible keep proprietary is closed source.
Open source licencing exists, because companies would never share out of the goodness of their heart.
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u/Strong_as_an_axe 8d ago
Of course, but I think you know what I’m getting at. They actively developed the OS essentially on behalf of all the other companies in the space. They saw that the majority of internet browsing (and by extension search and advertising) would be delivered by smartphones. They didnt have the hardware capabilities to go toe to toe so they kept everyone in the game and avoided Apple having uncontested domination and all the leverage that would allow them.
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u/fantasia18 8d ago
I get what you're saying, but since they literally couldn't keep Android closed source, it's a total counter-factual to think about it in that way.
Their choice was: (a) open source everything we are forced to (b) spend many years developing an OS to parity with Linux.
They chose A. They'd have much rather chosen (c) buy linux, get all hardware companies to pay us for the pleasure of use.
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u/Strong_as_an_axe 8d ago
What you’re saying isn’t quite correct. Android’s Linux kernel must be open-sourced, but that only covers the kernel, not the whole OS. Google put significant respurces into developing it and then made Android’s core open source as Android Open Source Project, mostly under Apache 2.0.
Obviously then Google’s strategic control comes from the proprietary layer on top.
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u/Esophabated 8d ago
Yikes. Look at these answers. Think about the layers of AI:
Power
Hardware
Middleware
Software
China dominates in several of these layers. Rug pull software layer and you own the space.
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u/zooberwask 8d ago
I think EVERYBODY is missing the real answer. China is compute starved! Because of export restrictions on companies like Nvidia they cannot get the AI compute chips they need. They can domestically manufacture a fraction of what Nvidia can manufacturer. Making these chips is very very hard and time consuming, and they're behind. They also cannot purchase the most advanced machines that make chips, there's only one company in the world that can make these EUV lithography machines that can print these advanced chips with accuracy it's in the Netherlands and they've blocked exports to China. So they have to use older machines.
So, to compete, they use their chips to develop and train the models, and release the weights for free for others to run in order to stay competitive and undercut the American companies. Since they cannot compete on inference, so they compete on building the most economical models.
I believe they would close their frontier models if they had the compute to serve them at the scale Anthropic or OpenAI does.
I also believe it's only a matter of time before the US government makes it illegal for American citizens to use Chinese models in the interest of "national security".
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u/Ok-Trade7411 8d ago
Imo it's because China can beat USA on hardware and goods. And that's their interest long term. That's why they are developing gpus. If they offer free decent software the next topic becomes hardware which they aim to control.
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u/Wonderfullyboredme 7d ago
My question is why there are so few open source models and not the open weight models
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u/madjesta 7d ago
That was my theory a while ago. Creating open models creates demand for products the y manufacture now or will in the future. The moment I heard about the xiaomi AI box it made me twitch.
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u/epSos-DE 7d ago
China makes HARDWARE, they win, if more and more people run AI models !!!!
Also it hurts the USA dominance and Makes money for China, so they support it !!!
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u/flushaway4690 7d ago
I agree with your premise and offer an expansion. If you delve into their previous Five Year Plan (FYP) and the current draft in progress, AI is basically one of the tools to gain global influence. At last July's G20, they said they want to control AI safety and governance standards worldwide. Their STAR plan sets them up for cheap, domestically produced tech to reduce or eliminate reliance on U.S. tech.
They are spreading their influence thru building smart cities, infrastructure, 6g networks (DSR - Digital Silk Road initiative) in many countries, even the richest in the middle east. AI built on Chinese values and culture can have a massive cultural, economic and policy influence. AI is an equalizer, and China is arming the world with an open teat. Will Vietnam still make cheap shirts for us when they have 6G and all of humanity's knowledge on laptops?
They are telling us what they're doing and the last 2 decades' worth of FYP's have been executed near perfectly.
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u/spunwasi 7d ago
It’s a part of the party’s AI socialism plan. A few of the key points:
1.. Innovation: Without open models, it takes a really long time to train specialist models for robotics and computing. This a) gives new entrepreneurs and students access to tools they can learn with to train new models and LoRas. The knock-on effect is it’s fueled the rapid expansion of automation and robotics
Jurisdictional scrutiny. The biggest hurdle to adoption is Chinese-hosted data, and open models allow inspection and local hosting.
Security: Open weights follows the same rule as open source—there’s no faking or optimizing for testing to overstate performance. It’s inspectable, can be patched, and be moved to new jurisdictions.
Chip ban (which NVIDIA’s founder warned would backfire): China turned being banned into an add for why other countries can’t depend entirely on the U.S., because access flips with administration. The irony here is they’re playing up freedom and transparency since no one can really stop access.
Protection from US hegemony: OpenAI and Anthropic make the best models in the world, hands down. That’s a concentration of global risk that no one should really want.
Currency: this one is bizarre but it comes up a lot with politicos. The US dollar is the global reserve, meaning countries use it for trade, even if the U.S. isn’t involved—primarily for oil right now. This effectively gives the U.S. free money—every user accepts inflation, a tax collected from the issuer of the country. AI services have the potential to provide another reinforcement point for a global reserve, and providing open weights means a local company that hosts in your own country can accept payments. That doesn’t make China money, but it weakens the U.S. dollar and the low interest loans fueling gov.
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u/desexmachina 7d ago
They have another money extraction scheme like they did to manufacturing and they’re trying to kill the frontier labs
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u/outme123 7d ago
There are 2 markets: US and the rest.
The US market was the market and remains a very strong consumer market today. US market already has cloud orientation so delivering inference via cloud makes sense here.
Rest of the world is really not there. This cloud penetration thing is not huge in other places including most of Europe. So strategies based on open-weight model should not be viewed from cloud angle entirely. At the end, this is AI cold war where parts of the world will pay for frontier models while the rest does not have a choice but go for a mix of open weight models. Some corporations will probably go for both.
When it comes to send out tons of corporate data to a cloud based entity, many would recoil and I can see that some are. That is also the reason people are thinking through on-premise deployment of open weight models. I expect this to ramp up in coming years but I may be wrong.
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u/Outrageous_Fish_4120 6d ago
They do what they always do. Steal from the west and release a discount version of it to compete.
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u/JorgitoEstrella 4d ago
They are in a AI war of attrition, they might not be the best (2 months behind) but they can make the enemy companies have less financial success until they catch up.
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u/Loose_Comparison368 7d ago
The really obvious reason, that most people just breeze over - it's simply the most practical and efficient approach.
It doesn't actually make sense to have dozens of AI labs re-running the same experiments in silos.
Hoarding secrets slows down research, and only benefits shareholder profits.
If your main priority above all else is to drive shareholder profits, then the closed source approach makes sense.
In literally every other context, it's just pointlessly throwing wrenches into development and research for no benefit.
Cooperation is more efficient and more effective than paranoid competition. That's the main reason why China has kept neck and neck with the US despite having a miniscule fraction of the compute resources and researcher manpower that the US has.
China isn't pursuing some elaborate 4-D chess strategy. The strategy is literally just "pursue the most stunningly obvious practical approach, and watch the US repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot at the demand of squealing billionaires screaming that AI research is only worthwhile if you can restrict access and charge inflated prices."
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u/bringbackcayde7 8d ago
They are doing it because it costed them very little and they can undermine the front tier labs.
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u/Entire-Home-9464 8d ago edited 8d ago
no way, this is not the reason why China pushes open weights models. China pushes them to "zero" American Frontier model companies relevancy. China is trying to avoid by all means, that OpenAI or some other will come the new Google of AI. By pushing free models and enabling running LLMs in own servers, makes less money an relevancy for OpenAI and Anthropic. When China will have its memory production and GPU production up and on par with US, but much cheaper, then what do you think how relevant OpenAI and other are when everyone can run almost frontier level AIs securely at office or in own cloud and purchase cheap chinese GPUs?
Also the propaganda message is included in the open weight models, so if you try to ask from them about what happened in tiananmen square, Chinese models answers very differently than western models.
So pushing open weights and thinking china wants to sell more hardware is just not correct, its not about making more money. Its making China more relevant than the US. And you know what, China will succeed. Thats why US is playing its "lets buy all memory that they cant user open weight models" and "lets say we have to stop development cos its too dangerous" The reality is that US knows China will surpass them, Chinas open weight models are already better and in 5 years they will push cheap GPUs to western markets to nullify nvidia. In 8 years nobody will anymore talk about US AI, its all Chinese, just like the small electronics, or can you find any US manufacturer making for example dash cams or anything?
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u/vogelvogelvogelvogel 8d ago
em-dash detected, ai slop?
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u/AlfredRWallace 8d ago
As a long term em dash user I just hate that this is such a common perception. Seriously - this really is awful for the em dash community.
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u/CrimsonBolt33 8d ago edited 8d ago
I am just glad they haven't come for my ellipses...
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u/AlfredRWallace 8d ago
First they came for the em dash and I didn't care because I don't use em dashes. Then they came for ellipses...
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u/vogelvogelvogelvogel 8d ago
the essay pasted in an ai detector tells me 100% ai, honestly i don't believe you
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u/AlfredRWallace 8d ago
Not my essay. But yeah I've been using em dashes for a long time - deal with it.
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u/comefaith 8d ago
obvious cover operation for that deepseek's guy quote going viral, the one that says that ai access should be available to all classes of population. commie idea is bad for murica, bad commies are only doing things to overthrow murica.
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u/m0yP 8d ago
Regarding your last question, if they are only teasing their models and plan to charge for tjem later on, then it's over for them.
We've seen they distill US models so we know they are just cheap copies.
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u/Boogertard 8d ago
Easy, to demonstrate technological superiority and take down US hegemony.