Facing China's strong rise in the open-source artificial intelligence field, the United States officially launched a new strategy called "ATOM Plan" on Monday, aiming to regain global leadership in open-source AI.
The "Qwen Effect" Raises American Concerns
The rapid development of China's open-source AI models has become an urgent threat to the U.S. tech community. According to Hugging Face data, Alibaba's "Qwen" series has become the preferred tool for global developers due to its powerful performance and complete free availability.
More concerning for the U.S. is that according to Artificial Analysis, among the top 15 AI models with the strongest performance globally, only five are open-source models — and all five were developed by Chinese AI companies. In July alone this year, Alibaba released four leading open-source AI models, while no similar achievements were made by U.S. developers during the same period.
Core Layout of the ATOM Plan
The plan will establish a non-profit AI laboratory based in the United States, focusing on developing truly open AI models that can be freely used and improved by global developers. The core configuration includes more than 10,000 of the most advanced GPU chips, providing computing power support for large-scale AI model training.
The plan has received support from more than a dozen industry leaders, including renowned tech investor Bill Gurley, CEO of Hugging Face Clement Delangue, and Professor Chris Manning from Stanford University.
Strategic Considerations Behind the Technological Competition
Nathan Lambert, the initiator of the ATOM Plan, admitted, "If the U.S. does not act quickly, it will soon fall behind." He pointed out that the problem is not a lack of talent or technology, but a lack of effective coordination and funding support.
Analysts believe that if the ATOM Plan fails to perform well, the U.S. will not only continue to lag behind in the open-source AI field, but may also lose its key influence over the global direction of AI technology development, which would pose a fundamental challenge to its technological strategic position.