American AI is locked down and proprietary. It's losing.
China's open-weights AI strategy is winning: its companies are taking the lead. America's closed-first, locked-down strategy is doomed to failure - and it could take the US economy down with it.
Link: China delivers a one-two punch to America’s AI dominance, by Robert Hart in The Verge AI models, as a product in themselves, have very little moat beyond what amounts to brand loyalty and superficial switching costs. Instead, the moat is in the enterprise services that sit around them: the deals and contracts, connectivity with enterprise systems, and quality of life features in an enterprise context. If we consider the models themselves, it’s easy to switch between them: someone could be using ChatGPT today and Claude tomorrow, with very little impact on their workflows. This is particu
Explore this link on the map →related reading
- Why does China open source their AI models?firstscattering.com
- 2028: Two scenarios for global AI leadership \ Anthropicanthropic.com
- Google "We Have No Moat, And Neither Does OpenAI"semianalysis.com
- Paper AI Tigersgleech.org
- Who’s Afraid of Chinese Models? – Stratechery by Ben Thompsonstratechery.com
- China’s AI Companies Are Going Closed Sourcechinatalk.media
- Stratechery by Ben Thompson – On the business, strategy, and impact of technology.stratechery.com
- The New AI Divideunaligned.io
- China OS vs. America OS (2026 version) - by afraafraw.substack.com
- Dario Amodei — On DeepSeek and Export Controlsdarioamodei.com
- The AI Issue America and China Can Cooperate On Now - The Wire Chinathewirechina.com
- What comes next with open models - by Nathan Lambertinterconnects.ai