Meta Platforms will take a more cautious approach to open-sourcing its AI models, citing security concerns.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company, known for its Llama models, will now be more selective about what it shares.

This marks a shift from Meta’s previous support for open-source AI.

Meanwhile, Chinese tech firms like Alibaba and Zhipu AI continue releasing open-source models at a rapid pace.

On Hugging Face, eight of the ten most popular models are now developed by Chinese companies.

Experts note that while US firms keep foundational models proprietary, China’s open-source ecosystem is growing fast.

OpenAI is also expected to launch GPT-5 this month.

🔗 Source: South China Morning Post

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ Open-source strategy shifts often signal competitive weakness rather than strength

Meta’s retreat from open-source AI coincides with Chinese models gaining significant market traction, suggesting the policy change stems from competitive pressure rather than purely safety concerns.

DeepSeek’s R1 model attracted 33 million active users in January 2025, tripling to 99 million by April, while over 500 derivative versions were downloaded 2.5 million times 1. Meanwhile, Hugging Face data shows that 8 of the 10 most popular AI models are now from Chinese firms including Zhipu, Moonshot AI, Tencent, and Alibaba [original article].

Jeffrey Ding from George Washington University noted that Zuckerberg’s announcement “would have been more meaningful if it was made when Meta’s open-source models were pushing the frontier, instead of at the present time, when they are far from the state-of-the-art” [original article].

This pattern mirrors how companies often abandon strategies when they lose competitive advantage, similar to how Google shifted its approach to Android openness as competitors gained ground.

2️⃣ Open-source AI development becomes a geopolitical soft power tool

China’s embrace of open-source AI represents a strategic pivot toward using technology sharing as diplomatic influence, contrasting sharply with the US approach of maintaining technological control.

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