You could argue that the only reason we have good open-weight models is because companies are trying to undermine the big dogs, and they are spending millions to make sure they dont get too far ahead. If the bubble pops then there wont be incentive to keep doing it.
I agree. I can totally see in the future that open source LLMs will turn into paying a lumpsum for the model. Many will shut down. Some will turn into closed source labs.
When VCs inevitably ask their AI labs to start making money or shut down, those free open source LLMS will cease to be free.
Chinese AI labs have to release free open source models because they distill from OpenAI and Anthropic. They will always be behind. Therefore, they can't charge the same prices as OpenAI and Anthropic. Free open source is how they can get attention and how they can stay fairly close to OpenAI and Anthropic. They have to distill because they're banned from Nvidia chips and TSMC.
Before people tell me Chinese AI labs do use Nvidia chips, there is a huge difference between using older gimped Nvidia H100 (called H20) chips or sneaking around Southeast Asia for Blackwell chips and officially being allowed to buy millions of Nvidia's latest chips to build massive gigawatt data centers.
> have to release free open source models because they distill from OpenAI and Anthropic
They dont really have to though, they just need to be good enough and cheaper (even if distilled). That being said, it is true they are gaining a lot of visibility (specially Qwen) because of being open-source(weight).
Hardware-wise they seem they will catch-up in 3-5 years (Nvidia is kind of irrelevant, what matters is the node).
About 2.5 decades from the start of the JVs, but they did it. Semiconductors and jet turbines are really the last two tech trees that China has yet to master.
Right. When I said "they'll always be behind", I meant in the next 5-10 years. They're gated by EUV tech. And once they have EUV tech, they need to scale up chip manufacturing.
Both are hard nuts but China is throwing massive amounts of money at the problem. They can already get performance or economy from each, they just need to figure out how to get both at the same time.
