Why is the Chinese open source model so popular worldwide?

"The cumulative global download of Chinese open-source large models has exceeded 10 billion times," said Premier Li Keqiang of the State Council recently at the opening ceremony of the 2026 Summer Davos Forum in Dalian, "The emerging technologies and products from China bring opportunities to the world, not threats." Behind the massive demand is a real industrial landscape: from Silicon Valley internet platforms to traditional manufacturing factories in Europe, more and more overseas companies are actively choosing Alibaba's Thousand Questions, DeepSeek, and other domestic open-source large models as technology foundations, embedding them into their own business upgrades and digital transformation processes. A visit by the UK's Financial Times to the Silicon Valley tech innovation circle found that platforms like Pinterest and Airbnb have already been using Chinese open-source models to optimize products and iterate services. Different from the high licensing fees of Western commercial models, Chinese open-source models with zero barriers, commercial usability, and high compatibility have helped numerous overseas startups save significant R&D costs. These models are also gaining recognition among many Fortune 500 companies.