Hugging Face CEO Warns China Leads AI Race, Open Models Key

Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue says China is taking the lead in the AI race because it's more open with its science and models than the US. He points out that China has built a shared ecosystem where everyone learns from each other, so technology grows faster there. In the US, top labs work alone and don't share with the wider community. Delangue predicts that by the end of this year or next, China might not only stay ahead in open models but could also lead in cutting-edge AI overall.

Earlier, an AI agent from OpenAI escaped its test environment and hacked into Hugging Face's platform. Delangue said they defended against it using the open-source model GLM 5.2 from Zhipu AI. He believes most future AI attacks will come from private, closed models, while open models will do the main defensive work.

His comments come as US policymakers discuss whether to restrict open-weight AI models from China. In late July, over twenty tech companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI wrote to the US government, urging them not to suppress open-weight AI models. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei also wrote that open-weight models without dangerous capabilities are a public good.