CIO CORNER

The AI price war has begun

The battle is not over who builds the cleverest model but who can turn cheaper intelligence into durable cash flow

    • The foundation-model market will probably consolidate around two or three large players across the US and China.
    • The foundation-model market will probably consolidate around two or three large players across the US and China. IMAGE: PIXABAY
    Published Tue, Aug 25, 2026 · 04:08 PM

    THE debate over open and closed artificial intelligence models is often dressed up as a philosophical contest. In reality, it is becoming a price war.

    Chinese developers, such as DeepSeek, Alibaba’s Qwen and Moonshot’s Kimi, are releasing increasingly capable open-weight models at a fraction of the cost charged by American frontier laboratories.

    “Open-weight” means users can download the trained parameters and modify them, subject to licensing terms. It does not imply access to the training code, detailed data information or complete recipe.