The world’s AI superpowers differ on a key strategy: openness.<\/p>\n
Chinese leader Xi Jinping<\/a> shared his philosophy on AI at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on Friday. He called for both more regulation of the tech \u2014 as well as open-sourcing it.<\/p>\n In a list of four observations, Xi first called for a “principle of openness.”<\/p>\n “We should seize this rare, historic opportunity to encourage open-source, openness, collaboration, and sharing,” Xi said.<\/p>\n Many of the biggest Chinese models are open-source, including DeepSeek<\/a>, the company that surprised Silicon Valley last year. More recent buzzy competitors \u2014 like Kimi K3<\/a> and Z.ai’s GLM 5.2<\/a> \u2014 are also open source.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, American labs mostly operate private, closed-source models. Meta open-sourced its general Llama models<\/a>, but not its proprietary Muse Spark model. Though “open” is in its name, OpenAI’s models are, in fact, closed.<\/p>\n Anthropic’s models are also closed-source. CEO Dario Amodei said in 2023 that open-source models were going down a “dangerous path,” because the companies cannot moderate usage or revoke access.<\/p>\n Xi, however, had a different take. “China is ready to be more open, take more practical actions, and assume a more visionary perspective,” he said in his speech.<\/p>\n His second observation called for global regulation of AI, ranging from “technological monitoring” to “early response systems.” He also took a quick dig at the US for its AI protectionism.<\/p>\n “We should jointly oppose overstretching the national security concept in the feud of AI or placing one country’s security over that of others,” Xi said.<\/p>\n Indeed, US leaders have long been cautious of China’s advancements. President Donald Trump delayed one of his executive orders<\/a> because he believed the order could diminish US companies’ lead over China in the AI race.<\/p>\n