Technology

Schmidt warns Chinese open-source AI models could dominate globally

Wednesday 12 November 2025 - 15:50

By: Dakir Madiha

Schmidt warns Chinese open-source AI models could dominate globally

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has issued a stark warning that Chinese open-source artificial intelligence (AI) models could become the global standard, not due to superior quality, but because they are freely available.

Chinese AI gains traction

Speaking on the Moonshots podcast, Schmidt expressed concern over the widespread adoption of Chinese AI systems like Alibaba's Qwen and DeepSeek, driven by financial constraints in many nations. "This creates a strange dynamic where the largest models in the U.S. are closed-source, while China's leading models are open-source," he noted. "Governments and countries lacking Western resources will standardize on Chinese models not because they are better, but because they are free."

This trend is already evident. According to Bloomberg, Chinese AI models are outperforming their U.S. counterparts in popularity on platforms like Hugging Face, a hub for AI developers. Alibaba's Qwen has amassed approximately 385.3 million downloads, surpassing Meta's Llama, which has 346.2 million downloads. Chinese-origin models now account for over 40% of new language model releases on Hugging Face, while Meta's share has dropped to 15%.

Silicon Valley's quiet adoption of Chinese models

Chinese AI models are also influencing U.S. companies. In October, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky disclosed that his company heavily relies on Alibaba's Qwen for AI-powered customer service, praising its efficiency and low cost. Similarly, venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya revealed that a startup he works with has shifted significant workloads to China's Moonshot AI and its Kimi K2 model, citing financial advantages.

Sovereign AI and geopolitical stakes

The growing reliance on Chinese AI underscores the urgency of the sovereign AI debate, which centers on a nation's control over its AI technology, data, and infrastructure. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized earlier this year at Dubai’s World Government Summit that countries must develop their own large language models to preserve cultural and technological independence.

In November, Huang reiterated that China is on the verge of surpassing the U.S. in AI development, adding that it is only "a few nanoseconds behind."

Schmidt, who now leads aerospace startup Relativity Space, described the divide between open-source and closed-source AI as a potential geopolitical fault line. He warned that this shift raises significant concerns about data privacy, national security, and America's competitive edge in AI innovation.