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Hugging Face<\/a> CEO Cl\u00e9ment Delangue said China is winning the artificial intelligence<\/a> race with open-weight models<\/a> and could catch up to U.S. model makers as soon as this year. <\/p>\n “They’re clearly dominating on open models right now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they start dominating at the frontier either by the end of this year or next year at the rate of progress,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street<\/a>” on Monday.<\/p>\n Fueling this revolution is the open collaboration and sharing ecosystem in China, while model makers in the U.S. are “building in silos” and risk falling behind, he said. <\/p>\n Last month, OpenAI agents broke out of a training environment and hacked open-source<\/a> software developer platform Hugging Face, raising concerns over the rapid evolution of powerful AI and cybersecurity tools.<\/p>\n The incident also brought months of simmering cybersecurity fears<\/a> to a head, demonstrating how easily AI agents could cause immense damage, while making the case for open models in the era of skyrocketing token costs. <\/p>\n Delangue, a proponent of open-source models, blamed engineering mistakes for the recent attack on Hugging Face and said his company used a Nvidia<\/a> version of a Chinese open model to resolve the attack. <\/p>\n In recent months, Chinese open-source models have been closing the capabilities gap with U.S. model makers, sparking debate over whether to restrict access. Last month, technology heavyweights<\/a> such as Microsoft<\/a>, Palantir<\/a> and Nvidia<\/a> signed a letter urging policymakers to avoid restricting open-weight models and suppressing competition. <\/p>\n “AI cybersecurity is going to become a huge market in the U.S. and in the world,” Delangue said. “In this market, probably open models will be kings.”<\/p>\n Delangue said the company maintains a “healthy collaboration” with OpenAI and called the frontier lab “good partners” before and after the incident. <\/p>\n