Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai urges Europe to back open source AI

Alibaba chairman Joe Tsai has publicly urged Europe to back open source artificial intelligence, according to a report by Simply Wall Street. The appeal frames open source AI as a question of industrial strategy rather than a narrow technical choice.

The call places one of China's most senior technology figures into an ongoing argument over how Europe should treat openly available AI models. That argument touches on competitiveness, regulation, and who gets to shape the systems that a growing share of the economy will run on.

Open source has become a live divide in the AI industry. Vendors that release model weights argue that openness spreads capability faster and keeps a handful of companies from controlling the field; critics counter that open release makes safety and misuse harder to manage. A public push from a major Chinese company lands squarely in that split.

Seen more broadly, statements like this reflect how AI governance is moving from the corporate level into regional policy. Europe's posture toward open source will affect where models are trained, who can access them, and how cheaply local firms can plug into frontier capability.

What to watch is whether Tsai's appeal translates into anything concrete — a shift in European policy, partnership arrangements, or further open releases — or remains a public statement.

Either way, the report records a clear position from a major AI player: Europe should not close the door on open models.