Same, you can think of China whatever you want but they're really good at giving big tech a reality check when it comes to AI. We now got a pretty wide range of open-weight models (from DeepSeek and MiMo over to Kimi K3, Qwen 3.8 & GLM-5.2) and I think it's most important that there's a variance not only between quality / intelligence and also cost.
I mean even the cheapest option for Luna is still more expensive than anything DS or MiMo is offering right now and I think a new Ministral model would also hit hard there because we also need some variance in model sources, we can't rely only on the US and China.
"China" isn't giving anything. These are Chinese companies leveraging their best competitive strategy at the moment: competing on price.
Those Chinese companies are being funded by a substantial amount of government financing, I think at least 20% has come directly from state owned investment firms or government entities and probably more now. You obviously lose precision when you’re talking in sweeping terms like “China” but I don’t think it’s entirely unreasonable in this case. The Chinese government is playing a much more direct role in AI investment and research than other nations.
Nonetheless, the government isn't giving it away either. If China had a monopoly on the technology, or simply winning in quality, open weight models would never have seen the light of the day.
I just want to dispell the silly notion of altruism from China in this conversation.
Bad chyna
The Chinese government is explicitly calling for open weight AI models, which influence its companies.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48970449