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This is the major reason China has been investing in open-source LLMs: because the U.S. publicly announced its plans to restrict AI access into tiers, and certa

This is the major reason China has been investing in open-source LLMs: because the U.S. publicly announced its plans to restrict AI access into tiers, and certain countries — of course including China — were at the lowest tier of access. [1] If the U.S. doesn't control the weights, though, it can't restrict China from accessing the models... 1: https://thefuturemedia.eu/new-u-s-rules-aim-to-govern-ais-global-expansion/ https://thefuturemedia.eu/new-u-s-rules-aim-to-govern-ais-gl...

dist-epoch 11mo ago
It isn't "China" which open-source LLMs, but individual Chinese labs. China didn't yet made a sovereign move on AI, besides investing in research/hardware.
- iambateman 11mo ago
  This is a distinction without a difference.
- baq 11mo ago
  Axiom of China: nothing of importance happens in China without CCP involvement.
  - yorwba 11mo ago
    The CCP controlling the government doesn't mean they micromanage everything. Some Chinese AI companies release the weights of even their best models (DeepSeek, Moonshot AI), others release weights for small models, but not the largest ones (Alibaba, Baidu), some keep almost everything closed (Bytedance and iFlytek, I think). There is no CCP master plan for open models, any more than there is a Western master plan for ignoring Chinese models only available as an API.
    - baq 11mo ago
      Never suggested anything of the sort, involvement doesn’t mean direct control, it might be a passive ‘let us know if there’s progress’ issued privately, it might also be a passive ‘we want to be #1 in AI in 2030’ announced publicly, neither requires any micromanagement whatsoever: CCP’s expectation is companies figuring out how to align to party directives themselves… or face consequences.
      - shroobani 11mo ago
        Unlike the US, where there are no consequences for not aligning with the ruling party's directives.
        mlinhares 11mo ago
        The US couldn't make China follow it, so it is now following China's lead LOL.
        baq 11mo ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism (not that I disagree)
        throw10920 11mo ago
        This isn't even whataboutism, because the comparison is just insane. The difference between the CCP, where "private" companies must actively pursue the party's strategic interests or cease to exist (and their executives/employees can be killed), and the US, where neither of those things happen and the worst penalty for a company not following the government's direction (while continuing to follow the law, which should be an obvious caveat) is the occasional fine for not complying with regulation or losing preference for government contracts, is categorical. Only those who are either totally ignorant or seeking to spread propaganda would even compare the two.
      - antonvs 11mo ago
        In other words, your original comment was pointless speculation with no real basis.
    - jimbo808 11mo ago
      They don't have to micromanage companies. A company's activities must align with the goals of the CCP, or it will not continue to exist. This produces companies that will micromanage themselves in accordance with the CCP's strategic vision.
      - antonvs 11mo ago
        That seems irrelevant in this case, given that China has companies all over the spectrum in terms of the degree of openness of their AI products.
- throwup238 11mo ago
  As far as I can tell AI is already playing a big part in the Chinese Fifteenth five year plan (2026-2030) which is their central top-down planning mechanism. That’s about as big a move as they can make.
  - esafak 11mo ago
    I think the plan is due next March? I believe it includes at AI Plus initiative: https://triviumchina.com/research/the-ai-plus-initiative-chinas-blueprint-for-ai-diffusion/ https://triviumchina.com/research/the-ai-plus-initiative-chi...
- reissbaker 11mo ago
  I think "investing in research and hardware" is fairly relevant to my claim of "China has been investing in open-source LLMs." China also has partial ownership of several major labs via "golden shares" [1] like Alibaba (Qwen) and Zai (GLM) [2], albeit not DeepSeek as far as I know. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/china-to-take-golden-shares-in-tech-firms-alibaba-and-tencent https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/china-to-take-... 2: https://www.globalneighbours.org/chinas-zhipu-ai-secures-140-million-investment-from-shanghai-state-funds-amid-ipo-push/ https://www.globalneighbours.org/chinas-zhipu-ai-secures-140...
slanterns 11mo ago
and Anthropic bans access from China along with throwing some politic propagenda bs
- UltraSane 11mo ago
  Ask deepseek about how many people the CCP killed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
  - r14c 11mo ago
    [flagged]
    - justinclift 11mo ago
      Pretty sure they're asking for the narrative that's widely known about everywhere _except_ by the er... non-leadership people of China.
    - UltraSane 11mo ago
      I'm genuinely curious how one develops a world view like this.
      - dmayle 11mo ago
        I recently learned about the (ancient?) greek concept of amathia. It's a willful ignorance, often cultivated as a preference for identity and ego over learning. It's not about a lack of intelligence, but rather a willful pattern of subverting learning in favor of cult and ideology.
      - r14c 11mo ago
        I read a lot. I'm not saying nobody died at Tiananmen, but framing it as a massacre is specifically a US/NATO narrative.
        UltraSane 11mo ago
IncreasePosts 11mo ago
Why wouldn't China just keep their own weights secret as well? If this really is a geopolitical play(I'm not sure if it is or isn't), it could be along the lines of: 1) most AI development in the US is happening at private companies with balance sheets, share holders, and profit motives. 2) China may be lagging in compute to beat everyone to the punch in a naked race Therefore, releasing open weights may create a situation where AI companies can't as effectively sell their services, meaning they may curtail r&d at a certain point. China can then pour nearly infinite money into it and eventually get up to speed on compute and win the race
- bamboozled 11mo ago
  I think it's just because China makes it's money from other sources, not from AI, and from what I've read, the advantage of China killing the US's AI advantage is killing it's stock market / disrupting. Seems like it may have a chance of working if you look at the companies highest valued on the S&P 500: NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Broadcom, Alphabet (Class C),
  - adventured 11mo ago
    The share of revenue that Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon are currently deriving from the AI market as a share of their total revenue, is less than 10%.
    - tigershark 11mo ago
      What about NVDA (~$4.5T) and AVGO (~$1.8T)?
    - LunaSea 11mo ago
      What about all the investments made by these companies and other VCs, hedge funds, angel investors, pension funds, etc?
- zamalek 11mo ago
  They are taking the gun out of USA's hand and unloading it, figuratively speaking. With this strategy they don't have the compete at full competency with the US, because everyone else will with cheaper models. If a cheaper model can do it, then why fork out for Opus?

dist-epoch 11mo ago

It isn't "China" which open-source LLMs, but individual Chinese labs. China didn't yet made a sovereign move on AI, besides investing in research/hardware.

iambateman 11mo ago
This is a distinction without a difference.
baq 11mo ago
Axiom of China: nothing of importance happens in China without CCP involvement.
- yorwba 11mo ago
  The CCP controlling the government doesn't mean they micromanage everything. Some Chinese AI companies release the weights of even their best models (DeepSeek, Moonshot AI), others release weights for small models, but not the largest ones (Alibaba, Baidu), some keep almost everything closed (Bytedance and iFlytek, I think). There is no CCP master plan for open models, any more than there is a Western master plan for ignoring Chinese models only available as an API.
  - baq 11mo ago
    Never suggested anything of the sort, involvement doesn’t mean direct control, it might be a passive ‘let us know if there’s progress’ issued privately, it might also be a passive ‘we want to be #1 in AI in 2030’ announced publicly, neither requires any micromanagement whatsoever: CCP’s expectation is companies figuring out how to align to party directives themselves… or face consequences.
    - shroobani 11mo ago
      Unlike the US, where there are no consequences for not aligning with the ruling party's directives.
      - mlinhares 11mo ago
        The US couldn't make China follow it, so it is now following China's lead LOL.
      - baq 11mo ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism (not that I disagree)
      - throw10920 11mo ago
        This isn't even whataboutism, because the comparison is just insane. The difference between the CCP, where "private" companies must actively pursue the party's strategic interests or cease to exist (and their executives/employees can be killed), and the US, where neither of those things happen and the worst penalty for a company not following the government's direction (while continuing to follow the law, which should be an obvious caveat) is the occasional fine for not complying with regulation or losing preference for government contracts, is categorical. Only those who are either totally ignorant or seeking to spread propaganda would even compare the two.
    - antonvs 11mo ago
      In other words, your original comment was pointless speculation with no real basis.
  - jimbo808 11mo ago
    They don't have to micromanage companies. A company's activities must align with the goals of the CCP, or it will not continue to exist. This produces companies that will micromanage themselves in accordance with the CCP's strategic vision.
    - antonvs 11mo ago
      That seems irrelevant in this case, given that China has companies all over the spectrum in terms of the degree of openness of their AI products.
throwup238 11mo ago
As far as I can tell AI is already playing a big part in the Chinese Fifteenth five year plan (2026-2030) which is their central top-down planning mechanism. That’s about as big a move as they can make.
- esafak 11mo ago
  I think the plan is due next March? I believe it includes at AI Plus initiative: https://triviumchina.com/research/the-ai-plus-initiative-chinas-blueprint-for-ai-diffusion/ https://triviumchina.com/research/the-ai-plus-initiative-chi...
reissbaker 11mo ago
I think "investing in research and hardware" is fairly relevant to my claim of "China has been investing in open-source LLMs." China also has partial ownership of several major labs via "golden shares" [1] like Alibaba (Qwen) and Zai (GLM) [2], albeit not DeepSeek as far as I know. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/china-to-take-golden-shares-in-tech-firms-alibaba-and-tencent https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jan/13/china-to-take-... 2: https://www.globalneighbours.org/chinas-zhipu-ai-secures-140-million-investment-from-shanghai-state-funds-amid-ipo-push/ https://www.globalneighbours.org/chinas-zhipu-ai-secures-140...

slanterns 11mo ago

and Anthropic bans access from China along with throwing some politic propagenda bs

UltraSane 11mo ago
Ask deepseek about how many people the CCP killed during the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
- r14c 11mo ago
  [flagged]
  - justinclift 11mo ago
    Pretty sure they're asking for the narrative that's widely known about everywhere _except_ by the er... non-leadership people of China.
  - UltraSane 11mo ago
    I'm genuinely curious how one develops a world view like this.
    - dmayle 11mo ago
      I recently learned about the (ancient?) greek concept of amathia. It's a willful ignorance, often cultivated as a preference for identity and ego over learning. It's not about a lack of intelligence, but rather a willful pattern of subverting learning in favor of cult and ideology.
    - r14c 11mo ago
      I read a lot. I'm not saying nobody died at Tiananmen, but framing it as a massacre is specifically a US/NATO narrative.
      - UltraSane 11mo ago

IncreasePosts 11mo ago

Why wouldn't China just keep their own weights secret as well? If this really is a geopolitical play(I'm not sure if it is or isn't), it could be along the lines of: 1) most AI development in the US is happening at private companies with balance sheets, share holders, and profit motives. 2) China may be lagging in compute to beat everyone to the punch in a naked race Therefore, releasing open weights may create a situation where AI companies can't as effectively sell their services, meaning they may curtail r&d at a certain point. China can then pour nearly infinite money into it and eventually get up to speed on compute and win the race

bamboozled 11mo ago
I think it's just because China makes it's money from other sources, not from AI, and from what I've read, the advantage of China killing the US's AI advantage is killing it's stock market / disrupting. Seems like it may have a chance of working if you look at the companies highest valued on the S&P 500: NVIDIA, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Broadcom, Alphabet (Class C),
- adventured 11mo ago
  The share of revenue that Microsoft, Google, Meta, Apple, Alphabet and Amazon are currently deriving from the AI market as a share of their total revenue, is less than 10%.
  - tigershark 11mo ago
    What about NVDA (~$4.5T) and AVGO (~$1.8T)?
  - LunaSea 11mo ago
    What about all the investments made by these companies and other VCs, hedge funds, angel investors, pension funds, etc?
zamalek 11mo ago
They are taking the gun out of USA's hand and unloading it, figuratively speaking. With this strategy they don't have the compete at full competency with the US, because everyone else will with cheaper models. If a cheaper model can do it, then why fork out for Opus?