Qwen, DeepSeek, Kimi: Beijing weighs the end of the free download

Ask Airbnb's customer service a question and the answer may well come from a model built in Hangzhou. CEO Brian Chesky said in October 2025 that his service bot leans heavily on Alibaba's Qwen, calling it "fast and cheap".

Beijing is now working out whether foreigners should be allowed to download such models at all.

Download no, rent yes

China's commerce ministry has spent weeks consulting Alibaba, ByteDance and Zhipu on whether foreign users should still be able to download the country's strongest models in full and run them on their own servers. A tiered system is on the table: a filing requirement for weaker open models, a security review for stronger ones, a publication ban for the top tier. Access through cloud services and interfaces would stay open.

A second part targets manufacturing. TSMC and Qualcomm would no longer be allowed to build chips based on designs from Huawei, Alibaba or ByteDance.

The price that explains everything

A million tokens of output, roughly 700,000 words, costs $0.24 on DeepSeek's Flash model. On OpenAI's GPT-5.5 it runs about 150 times that.

Which is why Alibaba's Qwen passed one billion downloads in July and now accounts for more than half of all open-source downloads worldwide.

The deepest dependence sits in Asia and the Global South. Financial firms in sub-Saharan Africa reach for DeepSeek more often than anywhere else. Singapore's OCBC runs more than 30 internal tools on open models, Qwen for coding, DeepSeek for market analysis.

Washington distrusts, America downloads

In Washington, Chinese AI counts as a security risk. In the country's startups it is routine: among those using open models at all, roughly 80 percent build on a Chinese one, according to investor Martin Casado.

When Chesky praised Qwen in public, Congress asked Airbnb for explanations. In May he pushed back, saying America misunderstands what these models are actually used for.

Beijing's plans are meeting resistance from China's own AI companies. Several have told the commerce ministry that tighter export rules would slow their own development and weaken China's chances in the global race.

RATHER WATCH THAN READ?

RATHER WATCH THAN READ?

Two humanoids went at each other in a cage in Shenzhen. One took a kick to the head, lost the head, and still won on points.

That is how the new episode of our Robotics News opens, 19 minutes from Shanghai. Also in it: a company that raised 1.5 billion yuan in four months and builds nothing but robot hands. Hyundai workers striking over robots that have not started working yet. And JD.com setting a one billion yuan sales target for a two-year-old startup.

Watch the episode

FROM THE TEAM

A second act for German carmakers

We just spent a week taking one of Germany's big automotive suppliers through China's robot factories. It changed how I see this.

For years the story about German carmakers has been the same: too slow, left behind by China. I don't buy it anymore.

A humanoid robot is built largely from the same parts as a car. Motors, sensors, power electronics. Exactly what German suppliers have spent a hundred years mastering. And Chinese robot makers are actively looking for partners to build them.

This is the biggest opening in a generation. You just have to come here once to see it.

That's what our bespoke tours are for. Let's talk.

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5 STORIES YOU MISSED LAST WEEK 

🇰🇷 Hyundai takes full ownership of Boston Dynamics: The Korean carmaker is buying SoftBank's remaining stake in its robotics unit, 9.9% for around $325 million, taking Boston Dynamics to 100% ownership. The lab that built the Spot robot dog and the Atlas humanoid becomes a fully Hyundai-owned operation. SoftBank sold Boston Dynamics to Hyundai back in 2020 and had held a minority stake ever since. Son handing over the rest fits the pattern: he would rather pool his money in his AI bets around OpenAI and Nvidia. For Hyundai, control of one of the world's best-known robot brands now sits entirely in Seoul.

🇨🇳 AGIBOT unveils four robots at once at WAIC: The Shanghai maker used the opening of the World AI Conference to debut four new machines: the full-size A3 Ultra humanoid, the X2 Edu education platform, the G2 Max heavy-duty industrial robot and the dexterous OmniHand 3 Ultra-M. The A3 Ultra runs on Nvidia's Thor chip and reaches 700 TOPS, or 700 trillion operations per second, enough to run several AI models directly on board. AGIBOT ranks alongside Unitree among China's best-known robot builders and is pushing hard into export markets. At a show with more than 300 global premieres, China's direction is clear: out to the export markets.

🇮🇳 India's AI startup Emergent turns unicorn on $130 million: The Indian platform that lets you build software and apps by typing a prompt, without coding yourself, raised $130 million in a Series C and clears the $1 billion valuation mark. Emergent rides the wave of so-called vibe coding, where an AI turns a plain description into finished code. The timing stands out: India-focused venture funds raised just $569 million in the second quarter, down from $2.41 billion in the first. As the backers' coffers run thinner, what money is left flows straight into AI applications.

🇨🇳 CATL's lead in its home battery market is slipping: China's market leader installed battery cells worth 32.59 GWh in new EVs in June, holding 42.7% of the domestic market, 3.43 points less than in May and the steepest drop among the 15 biggest makers. Runner-up BYD climbed to 18.49%. The overall market grew sharply, to 76.5 GWh of installed batteries in June, up 31.5% year-on-year. The striking detail is the surge of cheaper LFP cells made from lithium iron phosphate, which hit a record 83.3% share. Even the global leader is ceding ground at home, while the pie grows fast and smaller players catch up.

🇯🇵 Toyota and Nvidia deepen their partnership: Last week the two companies widened their work together with three concrete building blocks: digital twins of Toyota's assembly lines, an AI assistant that writes safety-critical vehicle code, and a city model for Toyota's Woven City test site. What stands out is what is missing: on driving, Toyota stays at L2++ assistance, hands-on-the-wheel help rather than a self-driving car, while other Nvidia partners are already chasing robotaxis. Toyota is betting on the factory and the software, leaving the robotaxi to others for now.

ALSO LAST WEEK 

🇸🇬 Singapore enterprise AI company Whale adds $40 million and takes its Series C to $100 million. The top-up to the same round shows how much money is flowing into AI for corporate customers. Singapore stays the magnet for the region's biggest AI deals.

🇹🇭 Thailand approves $3.1 billion for seven new data centers. The investment board waved the projects through, positioning the country as a data-center hub for Southeast Asia. Alongside Malaysia, Thailand is becoming a preferred home for the server farms that carry the region's AI boom.

🇨🇳 Chinese AI video platform PixVerse extends its Series C and brings the round to $439 million. PixVerse turns text or image prompts into short video clips and ranks among the best-known AI video tools out of China. While Runway and OpenAI's Sora grab the headlines, China is answering with a lineup of its own.

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