Chinese AI Model Closes Gap on US & African Teams Surprise at the World Cup

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Neal Freyman** (0:31)
Good Morning Brew Daily Show. I'm Neal Freyman.

**Toby Howell** (0:34)
And I'm Toby Howell.

**Neal Freyman** (0:35)
Today, Chinese AI models are quickly narrowing the gap with the US.

**Toby Howell** (0:39)
Then why African nations are dominating at the World Cup. It's Monday, June 29th. Let's ride.

**Neal Freyman** (0:57)
So, I was browsing through Twitter this weekend when I saw one post that stopped my scroll. Noah Khan, the singer-songwriter, wrote this, and I apologize if you're eating breakfast right now.
If you have to poop at a show, please, dear God, just go to the bathroom, LMAO. I've pooped my pants as much as the next 29-year-old, but you gotta understand there's a venue worker out there with a 1,000-yard stare after dealing with that. He did not add any context, but apparently this did in fact happen at Noah's show in Philadelphia on Friday night. Hey, that's a real fan right there.

**Toby Howell** (1:30)
I mean, what are we doing here, Neal? First of all, it's far too early for this conversation, and needless to say, don't do this, but the craziest part of this is the line from Noah saying, I pooped my pants as much as the next 29-year-old. How many times is that, Noah? What is the proper amount for a 29-year-old to have pooped their pants? We've probably already spent too much time on this, so I'm gonna focus on keeping my bowels under control for the rest of this show. Hopefully, you're doing the same at home.

**Neal Freyman** (1:57)
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**Toby Howell** (2:16)
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**Neal Freyman** (3:03)
Eighteen months ago, Chinese company DeepSeek dropped a cheap AI model that went toe-to-toe with America's Best, causing a market meltdown. They might have just done it again. Another Chinese AI firm, ZAI, released a system that matches the performance of Anthropic's top model Mythos in certain cybersecurity situations. While the market likely won't crash this time, it's a sign that China's tech industry has narrowed the gap with the US in the high-stakes AI arms race. So let's talk about this Chinese model. It's called GLM 5.2, and according to security researchers, it is as effective at identifying security bugs as Anthropic's or OpenAI's top-of-the-line systems, but falls short when it comes to other tasks. Another key distinction is that it's open-source, like many other Chinese models, which means it's much cheaper to use than American tech. The New York Times reports that GLM 5.2 costs about one-eighth as much as Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8. That means if you're a business leader trying to rein in runaway spending on AI, you're going to take a closer look. China's hitting the gas on AI comes as the US government is pulling the emergency break on its own AI champions. Last week, the Trump administration limited the rollout of OpenAI's new model, angering CEO Sam Altman, and has stymied the release of Anthropic's cyber-focused models, Mythos and Fable. Toby, all of a sudden, this arms race is neck and neck with huge geopolitical implications.

**Toby Howell** (4:24)
Yeah, cheaper is definitely the big selling point here because costing roughly an eighth as much, like that is a massive amount of money that you're saving right there. One quote from a VC put it well. He said, do you need to drive a Ferrari everywhere? Probably not. The Ferrari being something like Claude Opus or Claude Mythos, whatever top model that you are using. The fact that it is open source companies can modify it. They can run it themselves. They don't have to pay API fees. Those are all massive selling points here, especially because it does feel like there's more restrictions on US Anthropic models than there are Chinese models. One startup founder literally said that he said, right now there are more restrictions on models from Anthropic, which is just a crazy thing to say. So you factor in the availability of these Chinese models, the fact that they're open source and the fact that they're cheaper, of course, they're gonna start making inroads on the big boys here in the US.