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Trump’s AI plan backs antitrust scrutiny, DOJ official says

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U.S. antitrust authorities are closely watching the artificial intelligence industry for anticompetitive practices as part of the Trump administration’s broader push to secure American leadership in AI, a senior Justice Department official said on Thursday.

Speaking at Fordham University, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater emphasized that protecting competition in the AI sector is key to fostering innovation. “The competitive dynamics of each layer of the AI stack and how they interrelate, with a particular eye towards exclusionary behavior that forecloses access to key inputs and distribution channels, are legitimate areas for antitrust inquiry,” she said.

One major focus will be access to data. Slater noted that a judge in Washington recently ordered Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O) to share some search data with rivals, including AI firms, to strengthen competition in online search. Google has said it will appeal the ruling.

Slater added that demand for data could fuel vertical integration—mergers between companies and their suppliers—especially in sensitive areas such as healthcare. “We may also increasingly see the desire to acquire data, or to deprive rivals of data, play a role in driving transactions,” she said.

Open-source AI models are another area of interest. Slater said such models can enhance competition, but stressed that “a truly open-source model must be one that is not unilaterally maintained by a single vendor that exerts unwarranted influence and impose restrictions.”

Concerns about AI competition were also voiced during President Joe Biden’s administration, which scrutinized Big Tech’s partnerships with AI startups. Trump’s AI plan, however, explicitly ties antitrust enforcement to the goal of strengthening U.S. dominance in the sector.

China’s Moonshot AI Launches Open-Source Model to Regain Market Share

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Chinese AI startup Moonshot AI unveiled its new open-source model, Kimi K2, on Friday, aiming to regain traction in the highly competitive domestic AI market. The model is designed with advanced coding skills and excels in general agent tasks and tool integration, enabling it to handle complex workflows more efficiently, the company said in a statement.

Moonshot claims Kimi K2 surpasses several mainstream open-source AI models, including DeepSeek’s V3, and competes closely with top U.S. models like Anthropic’s in certain coding-related functions. This release aligns with a growing trend among Chinese AI firms to open-source their models, contrasting with many U.S. tech giants, such as OpenAI and Google, which keep their most advanced AI technologies proprietary. However, some American companies like Meta have also embraced open-source AI models.

Open-sourcing helps companies build stronger developer communities, showcase technological prowess, and extend global influence—a strategic move by China to counter U.S. efforts to restrict its tech progress. Other Chinese tech giants that have open-sourced models include DeepSeek, Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu.

Founded in 2023 by Tsinghua University graduate Yang Zhilin, Moonshot has become a key player in China’s AI scene, supported by major investors like Alibaba. The startup gained significant attention in 2024 for its long-text analysis and AI search capabilities but has seen its market position weaken after DeepSeek launched competitive low-cost models early this year.

According to the Chinese AI tracking site aicpb.com, Moonshot’s Kimi app was the third most-used AI product by monthly active users in August last year but slipped to seventh place by June 2025.

France’s Mistral Launches Europe’s First AI Reasoning Model to Challenge US and China

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French AI startup Mistral has unveiled Europe’s first AI reasoning model, aiming to rival leading American and Chinese competitors by leveraging logical thinking for complex problem-solving. The launch marks a significant step in Europe’s bid to carve out a homegrown presence in the competitive AI landscape.

Mistral’s reasoning models utilize “chain-of-thought” techniques, enabling the AI to generate intermediate reasoning steps when tackling difficult questions. This approach could help overcome current limitations faced by the industry’s traditional strategy of simply scaling up model size with more data and computing power.

Backed by venture capital at a $6.2 billion valuation, Mistral differentiates itself by emphasizing its European roots and commitment to open source, contrasting with proprietary models from companies like OpenAI and Google. French President Emmanuel Macron has publicly supported the startup, highlighting its strategic importance.

Mistral’s product lineup includes an open-source Magistral Small model available for free download on Hugging Face, and a more advanced Magistral Medium tailored for business clients. The models support reasoning in multiple languages including English, French, Spanish, Arabic, and simplified Chinese.

While American AI giants have largely kept their most advanced reasoning models proprietary, Chinese firms like DeepSeek and Alibaba have adopted open-source approaches to showcase their technology. Meta has integrated reasoning capabilities into its latest models but has yet to release a standalone reasoning model.

Industry observers see Mistral’s launch as Europe’s best chance to catch up in the AI arms race, particularly as the field shifts focus from brute-force scaling to more sophisticated reasoning abilities.