Open-source AI is Europe’s only path to tech independence, says Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai

For Europe, which shares China’s deep roots in traditional manufacturing, the open-source approach presented a unique opportunity, Tsai said, highlighting that factories in the region possessed highly valuable manufacturing data.

“You don’t want to feed it into some closed-source API. You want to maintain those data and be able to take open-source models and then further train your model, and improve it for your use,” he said.

The comments, which were made by the Alibaba co-founder earlier this week at the Wave tech event in Italy, came as Alibaba itself is doubling down on the open-source approach to become a leading player in the global AI boom.