2025 kicked off with the arrival of DeepSeek-R1. The Chinese-built AI model crashed onto the AI scene in January, sending Big Tech into meltdown and, importantly, putting open source on the map like never before. It demonstrated the potential of open AI frameworks to not only democratise access but also drive down costs of development and speed up innovation.
At its core, open source is about giving back control. In a landscape dominated by hyperscale proprietary models, choice has become somewhat of a luxury. Many businesses have found themselves locked into a single cloud provider, tied down by steep exit fees and rigid contracts. As a result, they have limited flexibility in how and where they deploy their workloads.
