The New York Times: Chinese AI models are favored in Africa, developers abandon American products

According to The New York Times, Chinese AI models are rapidly gaining popularity in the African developer community due to their low cost, open-source customization, and better handling of local languages, while leading American models like OpenAI and Anthropic are primarily closed-source and paid. Ugandan developer Ernest Mwebaze chose Alibaba's model over Meta or Google products when building a multilingual AI system called Sunflower aimed at local languages, which is now widely used by local farmers to obtain weather and planting information.

The report states that similar adoption trends are spreading in countries like Kenya, Nigeria, and Ghana, covering multiple fields such as law, education, and business services. Chinese open-source models (such as DeepSeek and Qianwen) allow for free download and modification, while leading American models are often closed-source and paid, creating significant cost and accessibility differences in middle- and low-income countries. Industry insiders point out that the rapid penetration of Chinese AI in Africa is bringing long-term competitive pressure to American AI giants.