Asger Risom
Chinese-made artificial intelligence tools are quietly being adopted by some of America’s best-known tech companies.
U.S. technology firms are turning in growing numbers to Chinese artificial intelligence models to power consumer-facing products, drawn by their low cost, flexibility and improving performance.
The shift is being driven largely by open-source systems developed by Chinese companies, which are challenging the dominance of proprietary AI models built by U.S. labs.
Open-source appeal
Pinterest is among the American firms experimenting with Chinese AI models to improve its recommendation engine. Chief executive Bill Ready said the platform has effectively become an AI-powered shopping assistant.
Ready pointed to the release of China’s DeepSeek R-1 model in early 2025 as a turning point. “They chose to open source it, and that sparked a wave of open source models,” he said.
Chinese competitors include Alibaba’s Qwen, Moonshot’s Kimi and models developed by TikTok owner ByteDance.
Cost and control
Pinterest chief technology officer Matt Madrigal said the ability to download and customise open-source models is a major advantage over many U.S. offerings.
“Open source techniques that we use to train our own in-house models are 30% more accurate than the leading off-the-shelf models,” Madrigal said.
He added that costs can be dramatically lower, sometimes as much as 90% less than using proprietary AI systems.
Growing adoption
Other U.S. companies are following a similar path. Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky said the company relies heavily on Alibaba’s Qwen to power its AI customer service tools.
He cited three reasons: it is “very good”, “fast” and “cheap,” according to Bloomberg.
Data from Hugging Face, a popular platform for downloading AI models, also points to strong momentum. Jeff Boudier, who builds products at the platform, said Chinese models frequently dominate download rankings.
Shifting perceptions
A Stanford University report published last month found that Chinese AI models “seem to have caught up or even pulled ahead” in both technical capability and adoption.
Former UK deputy prime minister Sir Nick Clegg told the BBC that U.S. firms may be overly focused on long-term ambitions such as artificial general intelligence, leaving room for China to dominate open-source development.
He described an irony in which China is “doing more to democratise the technology they’re competing over.”
Different pressures
Analysts say government support may be helping Chinese companies move faster. U.S. firms, by contrast, face mounting pressure to monetise AI investments.
OpenAI has prioritised proprietary systems while pursuing revenue, though it released two open-source models last year. Chief executive Sam Altman has said the company is investing heavily in computing power and future training.
As open-source models continue to improve, the debate is shifting away from who builds the most advanced system and toward who shapes how AI is actually used.
Sources: BBC, Stanford University, Bloomberg, Hugging Face
