01
Open-source release
Zhipu AI releases the bilingual ChatGLM-130B
Zhipu AI releases a 130-billion-parameter dialogue model built for Chinese and English, establishing the first generation of the ChatGLM line.
CURATED TIMELINE · EDITORIAL EDITION
China’s Open-Model Playbook
Follow the market’s shifts from bilingual chat models and hyperscaler-backed open families to sparse MoE efficiency, controllable reasoning, and long-context products across ChatGLM, Qwen, DeepSeek, and Kimi.
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10 nodes2022.06—2025.07 · Editorially curated · Updated 2026-07-15
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The timeline
Reviewed event briefs and original editorial context, ordered to show how the story changed over time.
- 02Open-source release
Alibaba Cloud opens the Qwen foundation-model family
Alibaba Cloud releases Qwen as a multilingual open-weight foundation-model family, giving developers a major China-built alternative across model sizes.
- 03Open-source release
Zhipu AI releases ChatGLM3 with native tool use
ChatGLM3 adds native function calling and code execution to a compact 6B model, shifting the ChatGLM line from conversation toward agent-like workflows.
- 04Open-source release
DeepSeek releases the efficiency-focused DeepSeek-V2
DeepSeek releases a 236B mixture-of-experts model that combines sparse activation with latent attention to cut training and inference costs.
- 05Open-source release
Alibaba expands Qwen2.5 into a broad open-model suite
Qwen2.5 spans small local models through a 72B flagship, with stronger instruction following and specialist code and math editions.
- 06Open-source release
DeepSeek-V3 brings an efficiency-first open model to the frontier race
DeepSeek releases a 671B MoE model with 37B active parameters, open weights, low API prices, and unusually detailed efficiency disclosures.
- 07Open-source release
DeepSeek releases the open-weight reasoning model R1
DeepSeek publishes R1, R1-Zero, six distilled models, and its reinforcement-learning recipe, pushing open reasoning models into the frontier conversation.
- 08Open-source release
Alibaba releases Qwen3 with hybrid thinking modes
Qwen3 combines fast direct answers and longer reasoning in one open-weight family, spanning dense and MoE models up to a 235B flagship.