Momentum builds for Chinese models
Several American AI startups have recently said they have used Chinese AI models in their workflows.
Legal AI startup Harvey recently unveiled a new in-house model, partially powered by Moonshot's Kimi K3. Data firm Snowflake has expanded its platform to include models from DeepSeek and Z.ai, enabling customers to automatically direct tasks to the most cost-effective or highest-performing models. Mayank Upadhyay, Snowflake's head of security and trust, expressed optimism about the development, stating, "We see a lot of value out of it, besides just the cost."
He explained that by hosting the models and implementing guardrails, Snowflake alleviates concerns over data privacy and Beijing's potential influence on the models' responses. Upadhyay added, "I'm not going to these models to ask them cultural questions. I'm doing some sort of data processing and it's fairly objective." As measuring the return on investment (ROI) of AI tools becomes increasingly important for businesses, Fanatics' VP of data and AI emphasized that "the cost aspect alone demands attention."
Businesses need to adopt a more nuanced stance on Chinese models, rather than adopting a blanket "no" approach simply because they originate from China.
Written by urgent.news from Semafor's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
