Recapping Open Models in 2025

Hello! Excited to share a re-upload of a talk that I think is excellent. Thanks to the PyTorch Conference for inviting me and letting me share the talk. 2025 has represented an inflection point year for open models — spearheaded by the release of DeepSeek R1 in January, but built upon by a rapid expansion of the Chinese open model ecosystem. The rapid increase in capabilities is largely driven by a handful of Chinese companies in addition to DeepSeek; Alibaba’s Qwen, Z.ai, Moonshot AI, and more, resulting in a widening gap between the best open Chinese models and Western counterparts. This talk covers the history and current balance of adoption and influence on the AI ecosystem, and then proceeds into a call to action for why the U.S. should also invest in open models as an engine of innovation and research for the rest of the world. Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1I1HVwWAR_J22eZvEwozr6rkPInXbavZ87O6XVOCRajk/edit?usp=sharing Another recording of this talk (slightly broken audio): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUcilE5Gx_0 For more on this topic, subscribe to my blog: https://www.interconnects.ai/welcome Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 00:35 2025 so far 07:41 China takes the lead 17:30 What comes next 20:29 What we should do 24:40 Q&A