BEIjinG, March 23 (Reuters) - The dominance of China's open-source artificial intelligence is creating a "self-reinforcing competitive advantage", allowing it to challenge U.S. rivals despite restricted access to advanced AI chips, a U.S. congressional advisory body said on Monday.
北京,3月23日(路透社)——美国国会下属的美中经济与安全审查委员会(USCC)周一表示,尽管获取先进人工智能芯片受到限制,但中国开源人工智能的主导地位正形成“自我强化的竞争优势”,使其有能力挑战美国竞争对手。
 
Driven by their cheaper cost, Chinese large language models from firms including Alibaba (9988.HK), Moonshot and MiniMax (0100.HK) now dominate worldwide usage rankings on platforms like HuggingFace and OpenRouter.
阿里巴巴(港股代码:9988.HK)、月之暗面 Moonshot、稀宇科技 MiniMax(港股代码:0100.HK)等中国企业推出的大语言模型,凭借更低的成本优势,目前已在 HuggingFace、OpenRouter 等平台的全球使用量排行榜中占据主导地位。
 
Beijing's push to deploy AI throughout a wide range of sectors to upgrade its manufacturing base, factories, logistics networks and robotics is generating real-world data that feeds back into model improvement, the report said.
报告称,中国推动在众多行业部署人工智能,以升级其制造业基础、工厂、物流网络和机器人技术,这一举措正产生真实数据,反过来为模型优化提供支持。
 
"This open ecosystem enables China to innovate close to the frontier despite significant compute constraints," the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission wrote in a report published on Monday.
“尽管面临严重的算力限制,但这种开放生态系统使中国能够在接近技术前沿的领域进行创新,”美中经济与安全审查委员会在周一发布的报告中写道。
 
"Chinese labs have narrowed performance gaps with top Western large language models," it added.
该委员会补充道:“中国实验室已缩小了与西方顶尖大型语言模型的性能差距。”
 
U.S. lawmakers have imposed successive rounds of export restrictions on China since 2022, banning them from acquiring the most advanced AI chips, though Washington approved exports of Nvidia's (NVDA.O) second-most advanced chip in December.
自2022年以来,美国立法者已对中国实施了多轮出口限制,禁止中国获取最先进的人工智能芯片,但美国政府在12月批准了英伟达(NVDA.O)第二梯队高端芯片的对华出口。
 
U.S. companies including ChatGPT developer OpenAI and Anthropic, creator of Claude, as well as traditional tech giants have, meanwhile, invested billions of dollars to remain at the forefront of the new technology.
与此同时,包括ChatGPT开发商OpenAI、Claude开发商Anthropic以及传统科技巨头在内的美国企业,已投入数十亿美元以保持在这项新技术领域的领先地位。
 
But their position could be under threat.
但它们的地位可能正受到威胁。
 
"Open model proliferation creates alternative pathways to AI leadership," the report said.
报告称:“开源模型的普及为人工智能领导地位开辟了替代路径。”
 
 China POISED TO CAPITALISE ON SHIFT TO EMBODIED AI
中国有望借人工智能向具身化转型之机抢占先机

Some estimates suggest that around 80% of U.S. AI startups now use Chinese open-source AI models.
部分估算显示,目前约80%的美国人工智能初创企业在使用中国的开源人工智能模型。
 
DeepSeek's groundbreaking R1 model launched last year quickly overtook ChatGPT as the most downloaded model on the U.S. App Store.
深度求索(DeepSeek)去年推出的突破性R1模型迅速超越ChatGPT,成为美国App Store下载量最高的模型。
 
And Alibaba's Qwen family of models has surpassed Meta's (META.O) Llama in global cumulative downloads, according to HuggingFace.
HuggingFace数据显示,阿里巴巴的通义千问(Qwen)系列模型的全球累计下载量已超过Meta(META.O)的 Llama 模型。
 
As AI's frontiers shift from large language models towards agentic AI and physical, or embodied, AI, China may be better positioned to capitalise on its mass data collection efforts to boost development of humanoid robots, autonomous driving software or even dual-purpose technologies, the report said.
报告称,随着人工智能的前沿领域从大型语言模型转向智能体人工智能和具身智能(实体 AI),中国可能更有优势利用其大规模数据收集优势,推动人形机器人、自动驾驶软件乃至军民两用技术的发展。
 
"There's a bit of a deployment gap in the embodied AI space between the U.S. and China. That's something that over time compounds itself ... We're starting to see that compounding now," Michael Kuiken, the commission's vice-chair, told Reuters in an interview.
该委员会副主席迈克尔·奎肯在接受路透社采访时表示:“在具身人工智能领域,美中之间存在一定的部署上的差距。这种差距会随着时间推移不断扩大……我们现在已经开始看到这种扩大的趋势。”
 
The commission is also watching how China uses AI in sectors like biotech, quantum computing and advanced materials, he added.
他补充道,该委员会还在关注中国在生物技术、量子计算和先进材料等领域对人工智能的应用情况。
 
Beijing has designated embodied AI as a core future strategic industry, and many leading Chinese humanoid robotics firms plan public listings this year.
中国已将具身人工智能列为未来核心战略产业,多家中国领先的人形机器人企业计划今年上市。
 
Despite warnings from some Western research organisations of the potential security risks of an over-reliance on Chinese open-source AI models and their political bias towards Chinese government positions, many companies are adopting them anyway.
尽管部分西方研究机构警告称,过度依赖中国开源人工智能模型存在潜在安全风险,且这些模型可能对中国政府立场存在政治偏向,但许多企业仍在采用它们。
 
Siemens (SIEGn.DE) CEO Roland Busch said earlier on Monday that there were "no disadvantages" to using Chinese open-source AI to train the German company's AI models specialised for industrial automation, citing their cost advantage and ease of customising parameters.
 
德国西门子公司(SIEGn.DE)首席执行官罗兰·布希周一早些时候表示,使用中国开源人工智能训练该公司专为工业自动化设计的人工智能模型“没有劣势”,并指出中国开源模型具有成本优势且参数易于定制。