OpenAI or ClosedAI?

Will China surpass the US with their community oriented approach to AI? The most notable aspect of this article to me was the short line about how companies were no longer sharing information about how their models are built as competition speeds up.

The incentive is to capture as much money and therefore attention as possible in the American system which leads to secrecy, yet deepseek rocked the world being open source. This strategy isn't new, China has been stealing IP in everything from incredible deals with Tesla to develop their own electric cars, to stealing information about the f35 through cyber crime.

But it works on an individual scale as well. Chinese migrants shared recipes to allow new immigrants to share in the success of other Chinese business owners.

The next century will prove which strategy works better, China spent the last century catching up. Yet cooperation is not the only kpi for success. Nietzsche taught that delusion and persistence are what truly lead to advancement. Sometimes it takes a mad lad with too much money to solve problems people did not even consider.

Even as China seeks to dominate ai, it relies on the revolutionary discovery of others, but also the illogical dream pushing those ideas to be profitable. When ai not only has a fast improvement cycle, but also an education problem, the American way might still win.

Both have different financial tools available, China can leverage low interest rates subsidized by the government to win on price, while America can use complex ownership structures and a robust legal and finance system to create products like Uber or OpenAi.

It's going to be an interesting year...

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/01/07/1130795/what-even-is-a-parameter/amp/