🖥️ Full-Stack Domination Through Hardware
• Chinese firms open-source AI to drive demand for domestic chips like Huawei’s Ascend and Baidu’s Kunlun
• Models are tightly integrated with Chinese hardware and cloud services, creating turnkey AI solutions
• Open code serves as the gateway to hardware lock-in and tech self-sufficiency
🏗️ Vertical Market Control
• AI models come bundled with industry-specific hardware and services across telecom, surveillance, finance, and healthcare
• This approach locks entire industries into Chinese tech stacks, ensuring long-term market control
• Open-source becomes the hook—hardware is the payoff
🌍 Global Standard-Setting and Geopolitical Leverage
• By giving AI away, China spreads its standards and protocols globally, especially in emerging markets
• Free models create global dependencies on Chinese frameworks, shaping future data governance in China’s favor
• Open-source is used to entrench influence—not just for goodwill
🧩 Western Open-Source: No Hardware, No Control
• Western players like Meta open-source AI to fuel research and ecosystem growth without a hardware backbone
• No control over infrastructure or industry adoption—open-source stays academic, not commercial
• The result: influence without leverage, models without markets