Here’s why Microsoft supports open-source Chinese AI

In the battle over whether the US or China will lead the world in AI, the argument for the US side largely can be summed up in four words: USA good, China bad.

In this worldview espoused by big US AI companies, the Trump administration, and many Republican members of Congress, AI born and bred in China is portrayed as a grave security risk. The Chinese government, they claim, will use Chinese AI models to steal information from businesses, individuals, and government agencies. They also claim that because Chinese AI complies with Chinese censorship rules, US companies that use these models will be forced to comply with the rules as well.

Critics also say that if US AI is overtaken by Chinese AI, the US economy could be dealt a crushing blow, because the hundreds of billion dollars being invested by US AI companies will go down the tubes.

Because of this, Big AI firms Anthropic and OpenAI are lobbying to ban Chinese open-source AI from the US.

Not all AI companies and their customers agree with a ban. Microsoft, Meta, and AI chip maker Nvidia, among others, say there’s room for both US AI models and Chinese open-source models.

What’s the fight really about? To understand, let’s first dig into the tech behind most Chinese AI.

What’s the fuss about?

The fight is primarily over what’s called lightweight open-source AI. “Lightweight” means the AI models don’t require multibillion-dollar data centers to train, build, and run them. They need comparatively modest processing power.

That’s attractive for businesses, because lightweight models are less expensive to license and run than much American AI tech, notably OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude.

The other draw for businesses is that Chinese open-source AI tech can be used for free. And perhaps more important that is that the AI is typically what’s called “open weight,” which means businesses can tweak the technology for their own purposes.

When a traditional American AI model is trained, people who train it must decide how much “weight” to give to every parameter in every element of training data. For example, if AI were being trained to tell the difference between an apple and an orange, a great deal of weight would be put on the color of the fruit and the appearance of its skin. Less weight would be put on the fruit’s shape or size.

When a company buys American AI, they don’t know how much weight is given to each training parameter. They don’t even know what the parameters are. In open-weight AI, though, businesses have access to those parameters — and they can assign their own weights to them. This means they can customize the AI more easily for their particular needs in ways they can’t with traditional American AI models.

(Note that the terms open weight and open source are often used interchangeably when talking about AI, although technically they differ. Some open-weight models withhold some information such as their source code and training data — information that should be made public for a model to be considered truly open source.)

What Microsoft says about the Chinese models

Microsoft, Nvidia, Google, Meta, and many smaller companies don’t agree that Chinese lightweight open-source AI should be banned. They claim that security and censorship issues can be easily solved. And they believe use of the models will help the United States economically, not hurt it.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella posted on X: “Open-weight models are essential to a healthy AI ecosystem.” He added that the models will “strengthen American competitiveness and expand economic opportunity, while protecting national security.”

Microsoft was also one of more than 200 corporate signers of a document outlining all the reasons they believe open-weight AI is important.

Microsoft isn’t just talking about the importance of using Chinese lightweight open-source AI — it’s begun offering it to its customers and is looking to expand it even more. Right now, DeepSeek, the first Chinese lightweight open-source model to make its way to the US, is available via Azure. And Microsoft is testing offering DeepSeek to customers of its Copilot Cowork agentic AI product.

Keep in mind that Microsoft’s embrace of Chinese lightweight open-source AI has less to do with virtuous thinking than with profit-making. Offering these products to its customers will please both old and new customers because of the tech’s benefits. The more Microsoft offers to its customers, the more money it will make.

What happens next?

It’s unclear what happens next with the Chinese AI products. OpenAI and Anthropic are allied with the Trump administration in wanting them blocked or limited in the US.

Still, there’s an increasing groundswell backing back their use. Bill Gurley, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, told the New York Times: “You have two factions fighting over this issue. There’s the people who want OpenAI and Anthropic to own everything, and then there’s everybody else, including customers.”

My bet is that in short term, OpenAI and Anthropic will get what they want, because Trump has got their back. But after Trump leaves office, don’t be surprised if Chinese open-source AI has its day in the sun, backed by Microsoft.ComputerworldRead More