OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman said on social media January 12 that the company will release an open-weight model next week, citing the need for additional safety testing as the reason for delays. The announcement comes as Meta Platforms Inc. faces questions about its commitment to open-source AI following heavy investments in talent recruitment.
Chinese firms quietly gain ground
Chinese companies are quietly expanding their influence through open-source models, forcing US firms to reassess their resource allocation between proprietary and open-source strategies.
Meta previously led open-source AI development with its Llama series, gaining widespread adoption, though the company lacks a clear monetization strategy for freely downloadable models. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has reduced public discussions about open source, fueling speculation that Meta may scale back its commitment to focus on proprietary models and maximize returns on high-cost talent.
Other companies releasing open-source models include Alphabet, Nvidia, Microsoft's Azure unit, and Mistral AI, alongside Chinese firms DeepSeek and Alibaba. OpenAI only publicly committed to open sourcing after DeepSeek's emergence.
What counts as "open source"?
Industry debate continues over what constitutes true open source, with some questioning whether releasing model weights without training datasets and architectures qualifies. Releasing model weights appears to be the current minimum standard.
Altman indicated in February 2025 that OpenAI's open-source approach may target GPU-supported models like o3-mini or mobile applications. A poll on X showed 53.9% of respondents favored the o3-mini-level model.
The company delayed the open-weight model release pending safety tests and risk assessments in high-risk areas. While Altman expressed confidence in community responsibility, he noted that model weights cannot be retracted once released.
Performance gap narrows temporarily
The State of AI first quarter 2025 report by Artificial Analysis found that DeepSeek's R1 model briefly narrowed the gap between open-source and closed-source models earlier this year. However, releases of OpenAI's o4-mini and Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro restored the closed-source models' lead.
The report ranks OpenAI, Alphabet, and xAI among the top closed-source providers, while Alibaba Group, Nvidia, DeepSeek, and Meta lead open-source performance.
While US companies prioritize proprietary large models and treat open-source as secondary, Chinese companies are expanding influence through open-source releases. OpenAI's positioning of its open-source models and Meta's future commitment will shape the competitive balance between China and the US in AI development.
Article edited by Jerry Chen
