More AI startups are reportedly turning to free Chinese AI models
The biggest tech companies in the world, like OpenAI, Google, and Meta, are racing to build dozens of gigawatts of AI computing infrastructure to meet what they say is incredibly high demand.
But free, open-weight Chinese AI models like DeepSeek and Qwen have been rapidly catching up to the leading frontier models.
According to a report from NBC News, more AI startups are deciding that these Chinese models might be cheap enough and good enough to pass on the state-of-the-art offerings from OpenAI, Meta, and Google. This, of course, would be very bad news for the AI capex orgy that is currently consuming the tech sector.
As the huge, all-purpose models try to do it all, startups are taking advantage of these open-weight models, which can be distilled and customized for specific applications, and usually for a much lower cost.
According to a report from NBC News, more AI startups are deciding that these Chinese models might be cheap enough and good enough to pass on the state-of-the-art offerings from OpenAI, Meta, and Google. This, of course, would be very bad news for the AI capex orgy that is currently consuming the tech sector.
As the huge, all-purpose models try to do it all, startups are taking advantage of these open-weight models, which can be distilled and customized for specific applications, and usually for a much lower cost.
