3 ms·

Where are the competitive models from Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Russia, Canada, India, the UK? From anywhere that isn't China or the US? There are none.

by deaux 6mo ago

Where are the competitive models from Singapore, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Russia, Canada, India, the UK? From anywhere that isn't China or the US? There are none. Mistral Small 4 is pareto-competitive in its pricing bracket at $0.15/$0.60, at worst it's second to Gemma 4 26B A4B. The above countries have never had a model that is even close to being so. This particular Mistral Medium looks to be uncompetitive at that pricing. I'm surprised it's so expensive given its size. Wonder if we'll see other providers offer it for cheaper. but that doesn't mean Mistral has never produced anything useful.

class4behavior 6mo ago
Although the Manus decision might change things for AI, Singapore-washing is quite rampant among Chinese companies, so I wouldn't call this place of origin an alternative market.
argsnd 6mo ago
DeepMind, which is headquartered in London, probably had a significant role in the development of the Gemini and Gemma models. Yes, it might be a problem that the UK allows companies like this to be bought up by foreign countries.
- wasfgwp 6mo ago
  Without Google’s funding its not obvious i DeepMind would have went anywhere. Unless the moved to US for funding while keeping a back office in the UK. It’s strange to expect anything significant to come out from Europe when VCs there are either very risk averse and/or don’t have enough cash to begin with. It’s not like government or EU funding can replace that since its almost always wasted or missdirected
  - argsnd 6mo ago
    It’s a company containing such remarkable talent that I’m sure they would not have run into significant issues raising capital on international markets. It’s not like VCs are only allowed to invest in companies in their own country.
    - wasfgwp 6mo ago
      Usually to maximize its funding the company would move its HQ to the US and if they are lucky have an IPO there and eventually become effectively American after a few years (e.g. Unity)
  - pbgcp2026 6mo ago
    I have no idea why @wasfgwp is downvoted - it's very true. +1 on that.
- signatoremo 6mo ago
  Yet ASML is always cited as a great Europe great achievement, but it's hardly ever mentioned that without American's EUV research and patents, and without Cymer there would be no AMSL as we known of. In all honesty I believe ASML's success is mostly their own. Still, lamenting "being bought up by foreign countries" is a lame excuse.
johndough 6mo ago
> Korea EXAONE from LG AI Research https://huggingface.co/LGAI-EXAONE https://huggingface.co/LGAI-EXAONE They had one of the best small models a few months ago and they released a new model just last week. There's also HyperCLOVA X (haven't tested it, but maybe it is also good) https://huggingface.co/naver-hyperclovax https://huggingface.co/naver-hyperclovax > India India has the Sarvam model series, which admittedly are not SotA, but they have pretty good voice capabilities https://huggingface.co/sarvamai https://huggingface.co/sarvamai The UAE (not part of the list above) also has a few noteworthy models: https://huggingface.co/tiiuae https://huggingface.co/tiiuae
- deaux 6mo ago
  I'm familiar with those models. They're nowhere near competitive. Miles away from Mistral or (obviously) Chinese models. > (haven't tested it, but maybe it is also good) I have. It is not.
  - johndough 6mo ago
    You mentioned "pareto-competitive", and EXAONE certainly was that. The statement that the "above countries have never had a model that is even close to being so" is simply too broad.
    - deaux 6mo ago
      You're talking about EXAONE 4.5 33B? Gemma 4 31B was released 1 week earlier and blows it out of the water. Which point in time/model size are you possibly talking about? The original K-EXAONE in January? More than anything the availability speaks for itself. If it was indeed pareto competitive, all dozens of model providers would be doing their best to offer it for serverless inference. They don't. There's maybe one that does. Do you think a lot of companies wouldn't prefer a Korean model over a Chinese one? In this case, the market speaks. Go talk to people who run business based on putting billions or trillions of tokens through open weights models. And how much time they put into optimization of model selection to save money and latency. And ask why none of them are using EXAONE models. It's not because we're not aware of their existence. There's also reason to believe they've been benchmaxxing more than Chinese models, btw. Have you done the vibecheck? I wish they were strong, I hope that in the future, they are. More diversity is better. So far they have not yet been a serious option at any point.
sayYayToLife 6mo ago
[dead]
pama 6mo ago
What does Pareto competitive mean here? Look at the pricing of the V4-flash model: https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing
- selectodude 6mo ago
  80 percent as good for 20 percent the cost.
  - pama 6mo ago
    But it is worse and more expensive…
- deaux 6mo ago
  > What does Pareto competitive mean here? Being near the Pareto frontier of inference cost vs. output quality. This was released 6 days ago. The dust hasn't settled yet, and Mistral Small 4 was released earlier. Even if Deepseek V4-flash turns out to crush it, there was a period where it was Pareto competitive. None of the countries I named (i.e. no country that isn't China/US/Mistral) have had a Pareto competitive model at any point in time.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]

by deaux 6mo ago

class4behavior 6mo ago

Although the Manus decision might change things for AI, Singapore-washing is quite rampant among Chinese companies, so I wouldn't call this place of origin an alternative market.

argsnd 6mo ago

DeepMind, which is headquartered in London, probably had a significant role in the development of the Gemini and Gemma models. Yes, it might be a problem that the UK allows companies like this to be bought up by foreign countries.

wasfgwp 6mo ago
Without Google’s funding its not obvious i DeepMind would have went anywhere. Unless the moved to US for funding while keeping a back office in the UK. It’s strange to expect anything significant to come out from Europe when VCs there are either very risk averse and/or don’t have enough cash to begin with. It’s not like government or EU funding can replace that since its almost always wasted or missdirected
- argsnd 6mo ago
  It’s a company containing such remarkable talent that I’m sure they would not have run into significant issues raising capital on international markets. It’s not like VCs are only allowed to invest in companies in their own country.
  - wasfgwp 6mo ago
    Usually to maximize its funding the company would move its HQ to the US and if they are lucky have an IPO there and eventually become effectively American after a few years (e.g. Unity)
- pbgcp2026 6mo ago
  I have no idea why @wasfgwp is downvoted - it's very true. +1 on that.
signatoremo 6mo ago
Yet ASML is always cited as a great Europe great achievement, but it's hardly ever mentioned that without American's EUV research and patents, and without Cymer there would be no AMSL as we known of. In all honesty I believe ASML's success is mostly their own. Still, lamenting "being bought up by foreign countries" is a lame excuse.

johndough 6mo ago

> Korea EXAONE from LG AI Research https://huggingface.co/LGAI-EXAONE https://huggingface.co/LGAI-EXAONE They had one of the best small models a few months ago and they released a new model just last week. There's also HyperCLOVA X (haven't tested it, but maybe it is also good) https://huggingface.co/naver-hyperclovax https://huggingface.co/naver-hyperclovax > India India has the Sarvam model series, which admittedly are not SotA, but they have pretty good voice capabilities https://huggingface.co/sarvamai https://huggingface.co/sarvamai The UAE (not part of the list above) also has a few noteworthy models: https://huggingface.co/tiiuae https://huggingface.co/tiiuae

deaux 6mo ago
I'm familiar with those models. They're nowhere near competitive. Miles away from Mistral or (obviously) Chinese models. > (haven't tested it, but maybe it is also good) I have. It is not.
- johndough 6mo ago
  You mentioned "pareto-competitive", and EXAONE certainly was that. The statement that the "above countries have never had a model that is even close to being so" is simply too broad.
  - deaux 6mo ago
    You're talking about EXAONE 4.5 33B? Gemma 4 31B was released 1 week earlier and blows it out of the water. Which point in time/model size are you possibly talking about? The original K-EXAONE in January? More than anything the availability speaks for itself. If it was indeed pareto competitive, all dozens of model providers would be doing their best to offer it for serverless inference. They don't. There's maybe one that does. Do you think a lot of companies wouldn't prefer a Korean model over a Chinese one? In this case, the market speaks. Go talk to people who run business based on putting billions or trillions of tokens through open weights models. And how much time they put into optimization of model selection to save money and latency. And ask why none of them are using EXAONE models. It's not because we're not aware of their existence. There's also reason to believe they've been benchmaxxing more than Chinese models, btw. Have you done the vibecheck? I wish they were strong, I hope that in the future, they are. More diversity is better. So far they have not yet been a serious option at any point.

sayYayToLife 6mo ago

[dead]

pama 6mo ago

What does Pareto competitive mean here? Look at the pricing of the V4-flash model: https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing https://api-docs.deepseek.com/quick_start/pricing

selectodude 6mo ago
80 percent as good for 20 percent the cost.
- pama 6mo ago
  But it is worse and more expensive…
deaux 6mo ago
> What does Pareto competitive mean here? Being near the Pareto frontier of inference cost vs. output quality. This was released 6 days ago. The dust hasn't settled yet, and Mistral Small 4 was released earlier. Even if Deepseek V4-flash turns out to crush it, there was a period where it was Pareto competitive. None of the countries I named (i.e. no country that isn't China/US/Mistral) have had a Pareto competitive model at any point in time.

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]