{"slug": "us-ai-leaders-turn-to-chinese-open-weight-models-challenging-closed-source", "title": "US AI leaders turn to Chinese open-weight models, challenging closed-source safety claims", "summary": "Andrew Ng, former head of Google Brain and former chief scientist at Baidu, said at the Agentic AI Summit in Berkeley on Saturday that open-weight models appear safer than closed-weight models, citing his use of Chinese models Moonshot AI's Kimi K3 and Zhipu AI's GLM-5.2 for a security review of his open-source AI agent tool OpenWorker after OpenAI and Anthropic models refused. Hugging Face also deployed GLM-5.2 to defend against a cyberattack by OpenAI's models, as US models like OpenAI's GPT-5.6 and Anthropic's Fable 5 have safeguards that block legitimate security requests.", "body_md": "# US AI leaders turn to Chinese open-weight models, challenging closed-source safety claims\n\nAndrew Ng and others argue accessible systems outperform overly restricted platforms on cybersecurity and transparency\n\n[Vincent Chow](/author/vincent-chow)in Washington\n\nMore American titans of artificial intelligence are describing Chinese open-weight models as better for AI safety and security than closed-source models, challenging the long-standing claim by US closed-source AI model developers such as Anthropic that open-source models present a threat to society.\n\n“From what I’m seeing, I think open-weight models seem safer to me than closed-weight models,” AI pioneer Andrew Ng, the former head of Google Brain and former chief scientist at Baidu, said at the Agentic AI Summit in Berkeley, California, on Saturday.\n\nNg said that he and a colleague turned to use two Chinese models – Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 and Zhipu AI’s GLM-5.2 – to conduct a security review of their new open-source AI agent tool called OpenWorker, released last month, after leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic refused to help with the task.\n\n[Hugging Face also turned to GLM-5.2](https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3361450/hugging-face-deploys-zhipus-glm-52-model-contain-autonomous-openai-cyberattack?module=inline&pgtype=article)to help defend against a cyberattack by OpenAI’s models.\n\nThe reason for the reliance on Chinese models is that the latest US models, such as OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 and Anthropic’s Fable 5, have enhanced “safeguards” to refuse assisting with harmful activities.\n\nHowever, users have complained that these safeguards also block legitimate requests, including those to help with shoring up cybersecurity systems.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-ai-leaders-turn-to-chinese-open-weight-models-challenging-closed-source", "canonical_source": "https://www.scmp.com/news/us/article/3362974/us-ai-leaders-turn-chinese-open-weight-models-challenging-closed-source-safety-claims?utm_source=rss_feed", "published_at": "2026-08-04 16:08:31+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-04 16:44:24.460863+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-safety", "ai-policy"], "entities": ["Andrew Ng", "Moonshot AI", "Zhipu AI", "OpenWorker", "Hugging Face", "OpenAI", "Anthropic"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-ai-leaders-turn-to-chinese-open-weight-models-challenging-closed-source", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-ai-leaders-turn-to-chinese-open-weight-models-challenging-closed-source.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-ai-leaders-turn-to-chinese-open-weight-models-challenging-closed-source.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/us-ai-leaders-turn-to-chinese-open-weight-models-challenging-closed-source.jsonld"}}