Alibaba's ModelScope and OSChina's MoArk race to fill China's Hugging Face gap

Rest of World profiles the two leading Chinese alternatives to Hugging Face, which Beijing blocked in 2023: Alibaba's ModelScope, launched in 2022, hosts 170,000+ models and claims 250 million users, while OSChina's MoArk, launched in 2023, hosts about 20,000 models and differentiates via engineers who optimize models for Chinese-made chips. Both trail Hugging Face's 3 million+ models, but Chinese developers cite faster download speeds and the push is accelerating over fears Washington could bar Chinese models from US platforms.