Open models recap: more on Kimi K3, Qwen 3.8, Xi's WAIC speech, distillation, the open-closed gap, and what's next
China commits to AI openness as Xi's WAIC speech and Qwen's open-weight pivot signal strategic shift
“Xi gave his speech where he directly committed to openness and open source as a strategy.”— Nathan Lambert
Nathan Lambert and Florian Brand recap a pivotal week for open models: Kimi K3 launched, Xi Jinping publicly committed to open source AI at WAIC, and Qwen announced its next major model will be open-weight — a notable reversal. The episode frames this as an accelerating US-China dynamic where China is strategically weaponizing openness, while the hosts also push back on simplistic distillation narratives and benchmark-driven claims about the open-closed frontier gap.