孟建国, ADAM SATARIANO, AARON KROLIK2026年8月6日When Ernest Mwebaze, a tech developer in Uganda, was building an artificial intelligence system last year tailored for his country’s many languages, he tested American and Chinese tools to see which one could help.乌干达科技开发者欧内斯特·姆韦巴泽去年构建了一个针对本国多种语言的人工智能系统，他当时对美中两国的模型进行了测试，看看哪一个能提供帮助。China’s won.中国模型胜出。The A.I. model from the Chinese internet giant Alibaba handled Uganda’s dozens of languages better than anything from Meta or Google, Mr. Mwebaze said. It was also inexpensive, and he could customize the model with his own data.姆韦巴泽表示，中国互联网巨头阿里巴巴的AI模型在处理乌干达数十种语言方面的表现优于Meta或谷歌的任何产品。该模型不仅价格便宜，还可以利用自己的数据对模型进行定制。“We want to build things as cheap as possible, yet have them work really well,” said Mr. Mwebaze, a former research scientist at Google. His system, called Sunflower, is now used across Uganda, including by farmers to receive weather information and crop advice in local dialects.“我们希望尽可能以低廉的成本构建产品，同时又能让它们运行得非常好，”曾任谷歌研究科学家的姆韦巴泽说道。他构建的系统名为Sunflower，目前已在乌干达各地应用，包括供农民接收以当地方言呈现的天气信息和农作物建议。Mr. Mwebaze, 47, is one of thousands of developers across Africa who have turned to Chinese A.I. models in the past year. In Kenya, entrepreneurs are using the models to streamline legal and business services. In Nigeria, they have made educational tools that teach high school students. In Ghana, developers are building local chatbots.现年47岁的姆韦巴泽是过去一年中转向使用中国AI模型的数千名非洲开发者之一。在肯尼亚，创业者正利用这些模型简化法律和商业服务。在尼日利亚，他们开发了教授高中生的教育工具。在加纳，开发者正在构建本地聊天机器人。China’s A.I. is surging, especially in developing countries, as people look for the best possible system at the lowest possible cost. Unlike models made by the leading American A.I. companies OpenAI and Anthropic — which are closed and charge fees — the Chinese systems are publicly available to download and modify without payment or approval.中国的AI正在蓬勃发展，特别是在发展中国家，因为人们都在寻找成本最低但效果最好的系统。与OpenAI和Anthropic等美国领先AI公司制作的封闭且收费的模型不同，中国系统可供公众免费下载和修改，无需付费或审批。 Stuart Tibaweswa for The New York Times乌干达米蒂亚纳区的咖啡农户穆甘齐使用Sunflower与他人交流农作物状况和农场管理事务。Sunflower是基于中国开源人工智能模型构建的。Chinese “open-source” models account for roughly half of total A.I. use on OpenRouter, a service with 400 A.I. models for users to choose from, up from less than 25 percent a year ago, according to a New York Times analysis of data from eight million customers. Chinese models are also 19 of the 25 most downloaded open-source systems on Hugging Face, another A.I. database.根据《纽约时报》对800万客户数据的分析，在提供了400个AI模型供用户选择的服务平台OpenRouter上，中国“开源”模型约占AI总使用量的半数，一年前这个占比尚不足25%。在另一个AI数据库Hugging Face上，下载量最高的25个开源系统中，中国模型占到了19个。In more than two dozen interviews across Kenya, Uganda and other countries, developers, policymakers and executives described a rapidly changing A.I. market where cost, computing resources, data control and customization mattered more than where a model was made. Often they were not looking for bleeding edge A.I. They just wanted something that worked well enough on limited resources.在遍及肯尼亚、乌干达等国家的二十多场采访中，开发者、政策制定者和高管们描述了一个剧烈变化中的AI市场。在这个市场里，成本、算力资源、数据控制权和定制化能力比模型出自哪里更为重要。他们往往不需要最前沿的AI，只是想要在有限资源下性能足够好的产品。Using Chinese models was like owning a house while using U.S. models was like renting one, they added. Rather than spending millions to train a model from scratch, developers can download a Chinese system and build an entirely new product on top of it, paying mainly for servers. In contrast, U.S. models are a one-size-fits-all technology, needing subscriptions and other fees depending on the job.他们还说，使用中国模型就像拥有自己的房子，而使用美国模型就像租房。开发者无需花费数百万美元从头开始训练模型，只需下载一个中国系统并在其基础上构建全新的产品，其支出主要是服务器费用。相比之下，美国模型是一刀切的技术，需要根据任务的不同支付订阅费和其他费用。“Why use an expensive Ferrari to do the school run when a Toyota hatchback can do the same?” said Moses Kemibaro, a Nairobi entrepreneur who runs a digital marketing agency, Dotsavvy, adding that Chinese models can be up to 90 percent less expensive when including costs like computing infrastructure.“当一辆丰田两厢车就能胜任接送孩子上学时，为什么还要用昂贵的法拉利呢？”在内罗毕经营数字营销机构Dotsavvy的创业者摩西·克米巴罗表示。他补充说，如果将算力基础设施等成本计算在内，中国模型最多可便宜90%。Chinese officials hope their gains in Africa are a preview of things to come. Last month, powerful new Chinese A.I. systems rattled Wall Street and Silicon Valley, stoking fears in Washington that U.S. tech dominance could be undercut.中国官员希望他们在非洲取得的进展是未来的一个缩影。上个月，强大的中国新AI系统震动了华尔街和硅谷，加剧了华盛顿对于美国科技主导地位可能受到削弱的担忧。Xi Jinping, China’s leader, is using A.I. as a form of soft power. At a July conference in Shanghai, he cast Chinese models as more reliable and cheaper and warned that A.I.’s benefits must be shared or they would create “new historical injustices.” Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa and seven other African countries signed an A.I. pact with China at the event to promote international cooperation.中国领导人习近平正将AI用作软实力的一种形式。在7月于上海举行的一场会议上，他塑造了中国模型更可靠、更便宜的形象，并警告称AI的红利必须共享，否则将创造“新的历史不公”。肯尼亚、埃塞俄比亚、南非以及其他七个非洲国家在该活动上与中国签署了一项AI协定，以促进国际合作。Chinese firms are also courting African developers with free computing and hands-on engineering help, developers said. Many Chinese-made smartphones in Africa come with Chinese A.I. tools preinstalled.开发者们表示，中国企业还在用免费的算力和实干的工程师协助拉拢非洲开发者。非洲许多中国制造的智能手机都预装了中国AI工具。At the same time, China’s A.I. industry faces challenges. Companies have struggled to make money from their users and face security questions about data and links to Beijing. Many African developers still pay for American A.I. models, especially for technical tasks like coding.与此同时，中国的AI产业也面临挑战。企业们难以从用户身上盈利，并面临着关于数据安全及与北京关联的安全质疑。许多非洲开发者依然在为美国AI模型付费，特别是用于像编写代码这样的技术任务。Yet Africa’s experience shows the global A.I. competition is now a two-horse race.然而，非洲的经验表明，全球AI竞争如今已演变为一场两强争霸赛。Kamal Budhabhatti, the chief executive of Craft Silicon, a Nairobi banking software company, feels the pull of both sides. He recently rebuilt his firm’s tech systems with Claude Code, Anthropic’s programming tool. A 10-person team finished in half the time a project that once took 100 engineers. The bill was high, he said, but the speed was worth it.内罗毕银行软件公司Craft Silicon的首席执行官卡马尔·布达哈蒂感到了来自两边的吸引力。他最近利用Anthropic的编程工具Claude Code重构了公司的技术系统。一个10人的团队用了一半的时间就完成了曾经需要100名工程师才能完成的项目。他说账单很贵，但这个速度是值得的。Huawei, the Chinese tech giant, also came calling with “some very unbelievable incentives” to switch to Chinese systems, he said, including a year of free computing and a trip to the company’s headquarters.他说，中国科技巨头华为也带着“一些非常令人难以置信的优惠条件”前来劝说他们切换到中国系统，其中包括一年的免费算力，以及一趟前往华为总部的参观之旅。“It’s very hard to say no,” Mr. Budhabhatti said.“这真的很难拒绝，”布达哈蒂说。The China Model中国模式About 50 miles southeast of Nairobi, one of Kenya’s biggest collaborations with Chinese technology sits half-finished on the savanna.在内罗毕东南约80公里处的稀树草原上，肯尼亚与中国科技最大的合作项目之一已经完成了一半。Konza Technopolis, a planned city, was announced 18 years ago as Kenya’s answer to Silicon Valley. Hopefully branded the Silicon Savannah, it is now a grid of empty boulevards and skeletal buildings, watched over by a powerful Chinese surveillance system.康扎科技城是一座规划中的城市，18年前作为肯尼亚对标硅谷的方案宣布启动。这一项目曾被充满希望地冠以“草原硅谷”之名，如今只是一个在一个强大的中国监控系统的注视之下由空旷主干道和骨架建筑构成的网格。 Paul Mozur/The New York Times位于内罗毕东南方向一小时车程处的康扎科技城包括一座由中国贷款资助并由华为建设的数据中心。It would look like a failed experiment but for one slate-gray building behind an electric fence. Financed by Chinese loans and built by Huawei, the site is a data center that runs computing for Kenya’s government.要不是一道电网后面有一栋板岩灰色的建筑，它看起来就像是一个失败的实验。该场地由中国贷款资助并由华为建设，是一个为肯尼亚政府运行计算的数据中心。For two decades, Chinese firms have wired Africa’s telecommunications networks and paved its roads. M-Pesa, Kenya’s celebrated mobile-money system, runs on Huawei technology.二十年来，中国企业一直在铺设非洲的电信网络和道路。肯尼亚著名的移动货币系统M-Pesa就是在华为技术上运行的。These tech ties gave China a foothold in the continent, which it is using to sell A.I. One project advertised at Konza will use technology from the Chinese A.I. firm DeepSeek to combat telecom fraud.这些科技纽带为中国在这片大陆上赢得了立足点，并正被用来推销AI。在康扎展示的一个项目将利用中国AI企业DeepSeek的技术来打击电信诈骗。Locked out of advanced chips because of U.S. export controls, Chinese companies could not outspend Silicon Valley. So they gave their A.I. models away as open source, hoping to pull people from U.S. rivals.中国公司由于美国的出口管制导致无法得到先进芯片，他们不能在资金投入上与硅谷比拼。因此他们将自己的AI模型作为开源项目免费提供，希望能将人们从美国竞争对手那里吸引过来。 Kang-Chun Cheng for The New York Times内罗毕中央商务区售卖中国电子产品的商店。二十年来，中国企业一直在铺设非洲的电信网络。At first, it seemed a losing bet. The United States dominated open-source A.I. Meta offered a model called Llama that developers used worldwide. But after some stumbles, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, turned more to closed models.起初，这似乎是一场必输的赌局。美国主导着开源AI。Meta提供了名为Llama的模型，全球开发者都在使用。但在经历了一些波折后，Meta首席执行官马克·扎克伯格更多地转向了封闭模型。“It left a huge hole,” said Lucas Atkins, co-founder of Arcee A.I., an American start-up that builds open models. “It allowed the Chinese to explode into the vacuum.”“这留下了一个巨大的空白，”开发开源模型的美国初创公司Arcee AI的联合创始人卢卡斯·阿特金斯表示。“让中国人得以在真空中迅速爆发。”Breakthroughs came quickly. In December 2024, a DeepSeek A.I. model matched the best models at a fraction of the cost. Last month, the Chinese A.I. lab Moonshot AI released a model with coding abilities approaching the leading American systems.突破迅速到来。2024年12月，DeepSeek的一个AI模型以极低的成本达到了顶尖模型的水平。上个月，中国AI实验室月之暗面发布了一款代码能力接近美国领先系统的模型。In Kenya, developers embraced Chinese models.在肯尼亚，开发者们拥抱了中国模型。Michael Michie builds A.I. systems for Kenyan banks and government agencies at EverseTech. His customers are price sensitive, so he makes almost everything on Chinese open-source models. Businesses want the cheapest way to use the technology, not the most advanced, he said.迈克尔·米奇的EverseTech为肯尼亚的银行和政府机构构建AI系统。他的客户对价格很敏感，因此他几乎所有的东西都是基于中国开源模型构建的。他说，企业想要的是使用这项技术最便宜的方式，而不是最先进的方式。“I don’t think people should worry so much about who built it,” he said. “The focus should be, does it deliver the capability you need?”“我认为人们不应该太担心是谁开发了它，”他说。“重点应该是，它能否提供你所需要的功能？”EverseTech首席执行官迈克尔·米奇，该公司正在内罗毕为非洲企业开发人工智能系统。 Kang-Chun Cheng for The New York Times Kang-Chun Cheng for The New York TimesMany developers said Chinese companies treated them like a priority, while U.S. firms were hardly present.许多开发者表示，中国公司把他们当作重点客户，而美国公司则几乎难觅踪影。Ahmet Acar, a former principal adviser at Amazon Web Services who lives in Nairobi, said joining a developer program from Anthropic required a lengthy screening. Alibaba’s took minutes.现居内罗毕的亚马逊云科技(AWS)前首席顾问阿赫迈特·阿卡尔表示，加入Anthropic的开发者计划需要经过漫长的筛选。而阿里巴巴的计划只需要几分钟。“With the Chinese, it was like: ‘Hey, are you able to do this? Are you located here? All right, man, go have fun,’” he said.“对于中国人来说，就像是：‘嘿，你能做这个吗？你是在这里吗？好的，尽情去玩吧，’”他说。 Kang-Chun Cheng for The New York Times肯尼亚最强大的AI数据中心之一。该国严重缺乏运行人工智能所需的基础设施。(The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, claiming copyright infringement of news content related to A.I. systems. The two companies have denied those claims.)（《纽约时报》已向OpenAI和微软提起诉讼，指控其侵犯与AI系统相关的新闻内容的版权。两家公司均否认了这些指控。）Wake Up Call警钟敲响In a Nairobi high-rise in June, a top Kenyan civil servant for technology said he was surprised when Anthropic pulled access to Fable, its powerful model, at the Trump administration’s behest.6月在内罗毕的一栋高层建筑里，肯尼亚主管技术的最高官员表示，当Anthropic在特朗普政府的授意下切断了对其强大模型Fable的访问权限时，他感到很吃惊。It was a “wake up call” to the world, said John Tanui, the principal secretary in Kenya’s Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy. The abrupt move was a warning that relying on U.S. models could pose risks, he said.肯尼亚信息、通信和数字经济部常务秘书约翰·塔努伊表示，这对世界来说是一个“警钟”。他说，这一突如其来的举措提醒大家，依赖美国模型可能是有风险的。约翰·塔努伊是一名指导人工智能政策的肯尼亚官员，他正努力应对美国和中国的人工智能技术带来的挑战。 Kang-Chun Cheng for The New York TimesA former Huawei employee who once led the Konza Technopolis project, Mr. Tanui said China and the United States had pressed Kenya to pick a side. He intends to take from both.作为曾领导过康扎科技城项目的前华为员工，塔努伊表示，中国和美国曾施压肯尼亚选边站。他打算两边的优势都吸收。“We don’t lean on West or East,” he said.“我们不偏向西方也不偏向东方，”他说。Being in the middle is tricky. Developers are building systems controlled elsewhere, which means the technology can be yanked, altered or re-priced without warning. Some worry about dependence on the United States. Others do not trust China.夹在中间是很棘手的。开发者们正在构建由其他地方控制的系统，这意味着这项技术可能会在没有警告的情况下被突然抽离、修改或重新定价。一些人担心对美国的依赖。另一些人则不信任中国。Mr. Budhabhatti of Craft Silicon said he was considering Huawei’s offer of generous subsidies, but was also cautious. Many of his customers are international banks that could demand their software not use Chinese hardware.Craft Silicon的布达哈蒂表示，他正在考虑华为提供的丰厚补贴，但也很谨慎。他的许多客户是国际银行，可能会要求他们的软件不得使用中国硬件。Chinese models, too, have not always been reliable. Shikoh Gitau, the founder of the Nairobi start-up Qhala, recalled when DeepSeek went dark in China before the country’s college entrance exams in 2024. It was to deter cheating, but it also disrupted African businesses like hers. Now American models could vanish because of a White House decision.中国模型也并非总是可靠。内罗毕初创公司Qhala的创始人史考·吉陶回忆起2024年中国高考前DeepSeek在中国停服的情况。此举是为了防止考试作弊，但也打乱了像她这样的非洲企业的业务。而现在，美国模型可能会因为白宫的一个决定而消失。“At least with China’s models, I can download it on my computer and run it,” she said.“至少对于中国的模型，我可以把它下载到我的电脑上运行，”她说。 Stuart Tibaweswa for The New York Times欧内斯特·姆韦巴泽是开发了Sunflower的Sunbird AI组织的执行董事，图为他位于乌干达坎帕拉的办公室里。Others have been burned by A.I. politics. Mr. Mwebaze’s Ugandan chatbot service, Sunflower, ran into trouble when a researcher at China Media Project, an independent media research group, asked it about China. Sunflower described China as a democracy and sidestepped questions about the country’s economic and environmental impacts in Uganda.还有一些人被AI地缘政治所伤害。姆韦巴泽的乌干达聊天机器人服务Sunflower遇到了麻烦——独立媒体研究机构中国传媒研究计划的一名研究员向其询问了关于中国的问题。Sunflower将中国描述为一个民主国家，并回避了关于中国在乌干达的经济和环境影响的问题。Chinese state media praised Sunflower, and Huawei contacted Mr. Mwebaze about using its cloud services.中国官方媒体赞扬了Sunflower，华为也联系了姆韦巴泽，探讨使用其云服务的事宜。Mr. Mwebaze, whose nonprofit organization, Sunbird AI, is dedicated to A.I. for social good, was unnerved by the experience. He is now using Google’s open-source model, Gemma, to create a product aimed at smartphone users.作为致力于将AI用于社会公益的非营利组织Sunbird AI的负责人，姆韦巴泽对这次经历感到不安。他现在正使用谷歌的开源模型Gemma来开发一款面向智能手机用户的产品。“We need to make sure we’re not on the wrong side of geopolitics,” he said.“我们需要确保自己不在地缘政治上站错队，”他说。肯尼亚最大的家居用品制造企业之一Chandaria的发票办公室。该公司已开始迈向数字化。贝尔纳德·莫曼伊·尼亚加卡是Sanifu公司的联合创始人，该公司使用OpenAI的模型，但一直受到一家中国公司的拉拢。 Kang-Chun Cheng for The New York Times Kang-Chun Cheng for The New York TimesEdwin Okoth自肯尼亚内罗毕对本文有报道贡献。孟建国(Paul Mozur)是时报全球科技记者，常驻台北。此前，他自香港、上海和首尔报道亚洲科技与政治的交叉议题。Adam Satariano是时报科技记者，常驻伦敦。翻译：纽约时报中文网点击查看本文英文版。