China Surpasses US in Open-Weight AI Model Downloads on Hugging Face Platform

The global AI model landscape has seen a significant shift in favor of China, according to Hugging Face CEO Clément Delangue. The company's repository for AI models has revealed that Chinese-developed open-weight AI models now account for 41% of all downloads, surpassing the 36.5% from US-developed models between February 2025 and February 2026.

This trend marks a significant increase from the previous measurement period ending August 2025, where Chinese models held a narrower edge at 17% versus 15.8% for US models.

Deliangue attributes this shift to China's growing dominance in the open model ecosystem. Chinese AI labs like Alibaba and Zhipu AI have been releasing models that compete with or exceed American counterparts on industry benchmarks. These models often come with permissive licenses, making them easier to deploy commercially without the legal overhead associated with US alternatives.

The importance of this shift was highlighted by Delangue when he shared an anecdote about Hugging Face itself facing a cyberattack in July 2026. The company turned to US-developed AI models first but found them limited by safety guardrails, which hindered their utility in the high-pressure scenario. They then pivoted to Zhipu AI's GLM 5.2 model, which effectively handled the task.

This development underscores Delangue's argument that open models offer three key advantages: cost, accessibility, and deployment efficiency. Open-weight models enable companies to run AI locally, customize it for specific use cases, and avoid per-query pricing associated with closed API services like those offered by OpenAI or Anthropic.