{"slug": "chinese-ai-developers-may-shift-to-paid-weights-commercial-licensing-goldman", "title": "Chinese AI developers may shift to ‘paid weights’ commercial licensing: Goldman Sachs", "summary": "Chinese AI developers may shift from open-source to paid commercial licensing for model weights to boost revenue, according to Ronald Keung, Goldman Sachs' head of Asia internet research. The bank notes that Chinese models have reached performance levels close to top US rivals, and domestic adoption is growing rapidly among SMEs and larger companies globally.", "body_md": "# ExclusiveChinese AI developers may shift to ‘paid weights’ commercial licensing: Goldman Sachs\n\nAs use of Chinese artificial intelligence soars, companies will look to boost revenue capture, says bank’s head of Asia internet research\n\n[open-weight models](https://www.scmp.com/tech/policy/article/3359791/china-weighs-open-weight-ais-security-risks-against-national-tech-innovation-strategy-researchers?module=inline&pgtype=article), according to the head of Asia internet research at Goldman Sachs, as firms look to capture more revenue from their soaring global use.\n\n[have reached performance levels just a fraction behind](https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3361387/another-deepseek-moment-what-chinas-kimi-k3-means-global-ai-industry?module=inline&pgtype=article)top US rivals.\n\nHowever, because Chinese developers typically release their models under open-source terms, foreign platforms and developers can freely download, modify and host the software’s core “weights” – the underlying parameters that encode their intelligence.\n\nRonald Keung, Hong Kong-based analyst at the US investment bank, said Chinese model builders could generate more revenue by requiring third-party providers to buy commercial licences to serve these models – a process known as inference – on their own infrastructure.\n\n“Domestic growth in adoption is very fast, and we think there’s considerable adoption among small and medium enterprises in the global market, and even larger [companies] are starting to consider using [Chinese models],” Keung said.\n\n### An open-source revenue gap\n\nMost Chinese models are currently distributed under permissive software licences, such as the MIT License, which originated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, allowing anyone to use, modify and host the models for free – even for commercial purposes.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-ai-developers-may-shift-to-paid-weights-commercial-licensing-goldman", "canonical_source": "https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3362032/chinese-ai-developers-may-shift-paid-weights-commercial-licensing-goldman-sachs?utm_source=rss_feed", "published_at": "2026-07-28 02:00:09+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-28 02:30:55.050641+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-startups", "ai-products"], "entities": ["Goldman Sachs", "Ronald Keung", "Massachusetts Institute of Technology"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-ai-developers-may-shift-to-paid-weights-commercial-licensing-goldman", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-ai-developers-may-shift-to-paid-weights-commercial-licensing-goldman.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-ai-developers-may-shift-to-paid-weights-commercial-licensing-goldman.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/chinese-ai-developers-may-shift-to-paid-weights-commercial-licensing-goldman.jsonld"}}