Kimi panic is a Sputnik moment for ‘open’ AI
It has forced Silicon Valley to finally admit that open models are a strategic asset.
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Advocates of open AI for years have argued that US leadership cannot rest solely on closed systems controlled by just a handful of labs.
PHOTO: AFP
Catherine Thorbecke
The release of Moonshot’s Kimi K3 has spurred plenty of noise in Washington, marked by threats of a crackdown and accusations of stealing. But the signal from Silicon Valley says something different: Open models are becoming essential to AI leadership, and the US is falling behind.
First came the panic. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared sanctions and Entity List designations were “on the table”, while accusing Chinese firms of intellectual property theft via distillation, a standard technique in which one model’s outputs are used to improve another. White House Office of Science and Technology Policy director Michael Kratsios echoed these sentiments. Soon, reports began swirling that the US was considering a crackdown on Chinese artificial intelligence models themselves.