I think it is entirely possible that there will be no new frontier open weights models at some point in the near future. Counting on the Chinese AI labs to keep making their models free forever doesn’t make sense as model costs rise & the value of having a frontier model goes up

Open weights frontier models are incredibly expensive to make, and, unlike open source models, there is no path to recoup that cost. You can’t easily sell ancillary services or complementary assets once the weights are out there, unlike open source plays like Red Hat or Android.

Even if the Chinese government is going to sponsor model creation, after recent events showed how much the US government cares about access to models, they are going to be increasingly reluctant to give those assets away freely - better to have control your own frontier model.