U.S. bans may have pushed China to open-source instead.
DeepSeek’s R1 is an open-source model, and soon many startup founders will experiment with it. The irony is this is happening despite U.S. efforts to block China from accessing AI technology, or perhaps because of those bans, which forced China to stay ahead by open-sourcing its models. The attempt to restrict China may have backfired by incentivizing China to make its AI widely available, spreading its influence rather than containing it.
— Stargate: The $500 Billion Message To China — The Future Of AI Regulation · Forbes