Zuckerberg warns: Barriers in the US give China an advantage in the AI race

Meta released a new artificial intelligence model today, Monday, Muse Glimmer AI, and made it available for developers to download and run on their own hardware. At the same time, the company announced that in the coming weeks it will open access to the Muse Spark 1.2 model, considered one of the leading foundation models in the world.

These moves mark Meta's return to releasing open-source models after the company's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, declared that the company "will soon resume the release of open-source models." Zuckerberg called on Washington to remove barriers for American open-source developers to allow them to compete effectively against Chinese rivals.

Zuckerberg warned that American artificial intelligence companies are facing restrictions that give an advantage to foreign competitors, and argued that American policy should aim to make American open-source models the best in the world.

"It is important that the US and its allies lead the open-source AI ecosystem, which will account for a large percentage of global AI usage," Zuckerberg wrote in a manifesto he published.

"Foreign labs currently hold several advantages in this field, as American labs must comply with many additional restrictions on training data," added Zuckerberg. Chinese open-source models, including those from DeepSeek, Alibaba, and Z.ai, are gaining momentum among American businesses thanks to competitive performance and lower costs, while policymakers in Washington are considering new restrictions amid national security concerns.