China vs USA: Open or Closed - Which Model?

As the world watches the AI contest shape the next chapter of technological and geopolitical power, a striking reversal unfolds. China, once known for stringent digital controls, is now opening its doors wide—releasing models like DeepSeek-R1 and Qwen-72B as open-source software for global communities. Developers from major tech hubs to emerging markets have eagerly embraced these tools, bypassing costly American APIs and forging a new wave of innovation centered on China's platforms. Notably, DeepSeek-R1’s training cost of under $6 million and its MIT license have triggered high forks and GitHub stars, making major waves in the developer world.

In a striking irony, America—the birthplace of Silicon Valley’s open ethos—is moving in the opposite direction. Despite heavy investments in AI, the U.S. is tightening export controls and building a security-first, walled ecosystem. The underlying message, though less publicized, is clear: safer, American-made AI reserved for allied nations. Meanwhile, China actively invites global participation—not only through open software but also via initiatives like Shanghai’s World AI Cooperation Organization, aimed at drawing nations into Beijing’s sphere.

This dynamic mirrors broader geopolitical shifts. While the U.S. retreats into economic and strategic insularity, doubling down on fortress-like AI policies, China leverages soft power—embracing openness to influence standards, build developer loyalty, and drive the next leap in global AI value creation. Shanghai’s $139 million AI subsidy program is leading a national arms race, and the city’s support of open-source showcases at WAIC 2025 underlines this intent.

Yet the story is far from decided. Technically, the U.S. still leads in research, chip production, and venture capital. But China’s ingenious engineers are narrowing the gap with leaner resources: Huawei’s chips now rival older U.S. models and open-sourced systems are prompting collaboration across Asia, Africa, and LATAM. The battle for hearts and minds plays out not only in summits and speeches but on GitHub and in innovation hubs worldwide. The landscape is shifting beneath both capitals’ feet.

The core question is trust and execution. Will the world adopt the U.S. fortress for its safety and business reliability, or will China’s open, collaborative approach set the future technical, ethical, and economic standards? The coming months will reveal which narrative turns to tangible impact—delivering real access, value, and resilience.

If you had to choose, which country’s AI technology stack do you trust more?  Take our LinkedIn poll:

1. U.S. AI technology stack – secure and trusted 

2. China AI technology stack – open and accessible 

3. Neutral / Both equally 

4. Not sure / Need more information

Please specify your country in the comments and share your reason for your choice.

Vote!  Poll link here now! 

Why We Invested in X.ai and How You Can Participate

Grok is now #1 in our LLM rankings, not just for its record 50.7% on Humanity's Last Exam, but for a data advantage no rival can match. Unlike competitors stuck with static datasets, Grok is powered daily by X’s 500 million social posts, real-time sensor streams from Tesla’s fleet, and soon, live data from thousands of Optimus robots working in real-world settings. This gives Grok a unique, ever-strengthening loop of human sentiment, environmental context, and robot experience that’s unmatched in scale or diversity.

This is the flywheel effect behind our conviction that Grok will lead the next wave of AI. Musk’s strategy is to fuse social, physical, and robotic data into the world’s most advanced unified training environment. Tesla has begun deploying Grok-enabled cars, and Optimus robots are running Grok in production. As both scale worldwide, xAI’s data moat and learning velocity put it on track to sustain market leadership. WorkOptional already holds shares and is expanding our position, confident this convergence of live social, vehicle, and robotics data will set the pace for AI’s most valuable decade yet. This data ecosystem is not just a stream of numbers; it represents a deeply interconnected feedback loop that powers Grok’s continual learning and real-time reasoning superiority. The variety of data sources spanning social interactions, autonomous vehicle telemetry, and embodied robotics creates a multi-dimensional data fabric that other AI systems can’t easily replicate. As Tesla vehicles drive millions of miles daily and Optimus robots expand their presence in factories and homes, Grok is not only training on historical data but evolving constantly with fresh, real-world inputs. This gives both immediate performance boosts in understanding context and long-term advantages in safety and adaptability, which are crucial to maintaining leadership in an increasingly competitive AI race. Our investment conviction stems from seeing this unique ecosystem effect play out day after day, accelerating growth and embedding Grok deeper into real-world applications.

We are securing another allocation of X.ai.  If you are an accredited investor and want to co-invest in X.ai and other “AI Dominators” please sign here here.

Top 5 Global AI Stories

1.  DeepSeek-R1 open-sources reasoning model; $5.6 million training claim sparks “Android moment for AI” memes.

2. Anthropic debuts multi-agent Claude teams, boosting complex task completion by 90 percent—AI colonies arrive.

3.  Leaked GPT-5 “Reasoning Alpha” docs point to August launch combining dense and Mixture-of-Experts layers.

4.  Google Gemini DeepThink earns Math Olympiad gold-level score, first machine to do so.

5.  Grok-4 Heavy crosses 50 percent on Humanity’s Last Exam, cementing X.ai as fastest-improving frontier lab.

Announcing Book 2!

Reserve your copy of “Ten Commandments to Generational Wealth in the Age of AI,” the highly anticipated sequel to our WSJ/USA Today bestseller by San Eng and Dr. Felix Arndt. Secure your special 50 percent discount with an early pre-order, and get exclusive access to investment insights at our Bangkok meetup on 10 August 2025. Don’t miss your chance to get ahead in the AI wealth revolution.

Must-Attend AI Events

1.  AI for Good Global Summit – 8-11 Jul, Geneva – UN-backed SDG focus.

2.  World AI Conference – 26-28 Jul, Shanghai – Governance & open-source showcases.

3.  Book 2 Launch Bangkok Meetup – 10 Aug, Bangkok – Generational wealth strategies.

4.  AI Infra Summit – 9-11 Sep, Santa Clara – Hardware & datacenter pipelines.

5.  World Summit AI – 8-9 Oct, Amsterdam – Enterprise AI & societal impact.

Stay ahead of the AI revolution—the future belongs to those who choose the right side of history and the right investments.

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