china dropped a 1.6 trillion parameter open-source model on july 4th and the timing is not subtle

China just open-sourced a 1.6-trillion-parameter model — trained entirely on domestic chips, no NVIDIA anywhere — and dropped it MIT licensed on July 4th, 2026.

July. Fourth.

That’s bigger than any publicly available model right now. Built without the hardware the US has spent years trying to keep out of Chinese hands. Released free for anyone to use, modify, or deploy, on the day America celebrates independence from a colonial power.

Meanwhile Anthropic is literally closing the loopholes that let Chinese companies access Claude through Singapore and VPNs, and the export control battles over frontier models are hotter than ever.

The message couldn’t be louder if they’d added a fireworks emoji. The chip war just got a very public RSVP.