Chinese AI Models Surge Ahead as US Pushes Allies to Pick Sides

Alibaba's open-source Qwen models have crossed 3 billion downloads, dwarfing Meta's 227 million and Google's 418 million in 2026. This isn't just a vanity metric—Qwen has spawned 300,000+ derivatives and become the default foundation for developers worldwide, according to Hugging Face's latest report. The US is now scrambling to respond: Washington is preparing to tell partners to pick sides in the AI race, framing Chinese open-weight models as a strategic threat to...