{"id":730841,"date":"2026-08-07T22:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/730841\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:06:08","slug":"chinas-ai-ecosystem-is-not-as-open-as-it-claims-nor-is-any-other-countrys-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/730841\/","title":{"rendered":"China\u2019s AI ecosystem is not as open as it claims. Nor is any other country\u2019s | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ambassador Zheng Zeguang rightly celebrates openly released AI models, and the Chinese labs behind Qwen, DeepSeek and Kimi have led the way \u2013 competition that benefits everyone, especially where models can run on modest hardware in the developing world (The future of AI hinges on openness and cooperation. China and Britain can gain much by working together, 30 July<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But his claim that openness is a defining feature of China\u2019s AI development deserves scrutiny. Take GeoGPT<\/a>, the geoscience system from Zhejiang Lab showcased at last month\u2019s World AI Conference as a model of jointly governed open science. It is promoted to countries as open, yet under the model openness framework \u2013 endorsed in a recent UN report<\/a> \u2013 it would not qualify as open at all. It releases model weights (built mainly on Alibaba Qwen, whose licences are not Open Systems Interconnection-compliant), no training data or application source code is released<\/a>, and its governance committee answers to Zhejiang Lab itself.<\/p>\n

Domain rivals show what fuller openness looks like. The European Space Agency\u2019s Earth Virtual Expert<\/a> (EVE), also built for the Earth sciences, releases its training and evaluation tooling, while the US non-profit Ai2\u2019s OLMo<\/a> goes further still, publishing everything needed for reproducibility.<\/p>\n

The distinction matters. A free hosted service is not an open one: GeoGPT\u2019s users route their data<\/a> through China\u2019s legal jurisdiction, creating real dependency and sovereignty risks.<\/p>\n

None of this is unique to China<\/a>. The US private-enterprise model raises much the same concerns. That is really the ambassador\u2019s own point extended: no country\u2019s ecosystem is quite as open as its diplomacy suggests. If the UK is to gain from the cooperation he proposes, it should press for shared openness standards like the UN-recommended model openness framework as the basis for any joint work. Honest measurement, not just the language of openness, is where real partnership begins.
Prof Paul H Cleverley
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen<\/p>\n

Your article rightly argues that Britain cannot afford to be a passive consumer of AI while the US and China shape the technologies that will define the future. Yet the debate should not be reduced to a geopolitical race.<\/p>\n

The real question is what kind of AI Britain wishes to build. Our greatest strength is not simply our research universities or life-sciences sector, but the NHS, our public institutions and a long tradition of ethical inquiry. These provide an opportunity to develop AI that is trustworthy, transparent and directed towards the public good rather than solely commercial advantage.<\/p>\n

Healthcare illustrates both the promise and the risk. AI can reduce administrative burdens, improve diagnosis and widen access to care. However, public confidence depends on strong governance, meaningful human oversight and assurance that patient data serves citizens rather than corporate or geopolitical interests. Recent work by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency\u2019s national commission<\/a> into the regulation of AI in healthcare has highlighted exactly these concerns.<\/p>\n

Britain should resist the temptation to imitate either Silicon Valley\u2019s market dominance or China\u2019s state-led model. Instead, it could offer a distinctive path: AI that combines innovation with democratic accountability, scientific excellence and social justice. That would be a form of leadership worthy of Britain\u2019s traditions \u2013 and one that others might choose to follow.
Dr Claire Jenkins
Wollaton, Nottinghamshire<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ambassador Zheng Zeguang rightly celebrates openly released AI models, and the Chinese labs behind Qwen, DeepSeek and Kimi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-730841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/730842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}