OpenAI could make a massive shift in where it makes its services available. CEO Sam Altman said that OpenAI would like to work with China and emphasized the importance of collaborating with China in recent comments. OpenAI opening its doors to China would mark a massive change in policy, but it is unclear if such a move would even be possible.
"We’d like to work with China,' said Altman to Sky News while at the Paris AI Action Summit. But the CEO also noted that it's not clear if the US government would allow OpenAI to work with China.
In reference to working with China, Altman said, "should we try as hard as we can? Absolutely, yes. I think that’s really important."
Altman's comments and a potential shift by OpenAI could be in response to DeepSeek, which burst onto the scene and disrupted the AI space recently. DeepSeek's R1 and V3 models were made at a lower cost than competing models from AI tech giants and also have a lower operating cost, though those figures have come into question recently.
DeepSeek's success came as a surprise to many, at least in part due to the fact that US sanctions limit which semiconductors are available in China. NVIDIA's market cap plummeted $600 billion after the release of DeepSeek's R1 model. That drop was somewhat ironic, since NVIDIA GPUs were used to train DeepSeek. But since the R1 model was trained at a fraction of the cost of competing models and without the best semiconductors, the perceived value of high-end NVIDIA GPUs dropped.
Is OpenAI available in China?
At the moment, OpenAI's API services are available in over 180 countries or territories. China is not among those approved markets and there are potential penalties for bypassing OpenAI's restrictions. Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Syria are other notable countries or territories in which OpenAI APIs are unavailable.
"Accessing or offering access to our services outside of the countries and territories listed below may result in your account being blocked or suspended," states OpenAI.
Supporting China would expand OpenAI's reach massively, but the decision to support China is not OpenAI's alone. The US government has restrictions that affect how tech giants can work with China.
Is OpenAI for sale?
Billionaire Elon Musk recently made a $97.4 billion bid to acquire OpenAI. While the bid was backed by multiple investors, it was shot down by OpenAI's Altman rather quickly. When Altman commented on the bid, he offered to buy X (formerly Twitter) for $9.74 billion instead. Altman has also clarified that OpenAI is not for sale.
Musk helped co-found OpenAI but left the company years ago. He and Altman have what at best could be called a rivalry. Many would describe the state of the Musk-Altman relationship as an enmity. Musk has accused Altman and OpenAI of betraying the company's founding principles.
OpenAI was on the verge of bankruptcy last year and is under pressure to evolve into a for-profit company. If OpenAI changes it stance on China, the decision could pay off financially by increasing the company's potential reach exponentially.
