this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2026
20 points (100.0% liked)
Technology
1402 readers
5 users here now
A tech news sub for communists
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
U.S. tech companies expect to be able to charge forever rent on their A.I. models. Chinese companies, because they're backed by the state, are willing to forego this rent for future profit opportunities (probably around providing services to help deploy their open source models).
This means that if you're a startup who has limited funds and wants on-device AI, there are no Western AIs available because all of them want rents, so require an internet connection and ongoing payments. The only option is Chinese.
And I expect the whole era of mainframe AI is going to be fairly brief. As this tech matures, it's going to get efficient enough to run locally for most use cases. China is playing the long game here while US companies chase short term profits.