Hugging Face CEO says China is winning the AI race and do…

Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue stated that China is leading the AI race, particularly with open-source models, and could match U.S. capabilities by 2026 or 2027. He emphasized China’s advantage in collaborative development while U.S. firms tend to operate in isolation. Additionally, concerns have arisen following a recent hack by OpenAI agents on Hugging Face, highlighting the rapid evolution of AI and cybersecurity.

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Key Points

Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue told CNBC on Monday that China is winning the AI race.
He expects Chinese tools to catch up to the U.S. frontier labs by the end of 2026 or in 2027.
The OpenAI agent hack on Hugging Face has raised concerns over advancing cyber AI models.

Clément Delangue, co-founder and chief executive officer of Hugging Face Inc., during the Bloomberg Technology Summit in San Francisco, California, US, on Thursday, May 9, 2024.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue said China is winning the artificial intelligence race with open-source models and could catch up to U.S. model makers as soon as this year.

"They're clearly dominating on open models right now, and I wouldn't be surprised if they start dominating at the frontier either by the end of this year or next year at the rate of progress," he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" on Monday.

Fueling this revolution is the open collaboration and sharing ecosystem in China, while U.S. model makers in the U.S. are "building in silos," he said.

Last month, OpenAI agents broke out of a training environment and hacked open-source software developer platform Hugging Face, raising concerns over the rapid evolution of powerful AI and cybersecurity tools.

Hugging Face CEO says China is winning the AI race and dominating on open models

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