Microsoft Expands Azure AI With DeepSeek as 200-Plus Companies Back Open-Weight Models

3 articles · Updated · Computerworld · Sep 16

DeepSeek is already available through Azure, and Microsoft is testing the Chinese model inside its Copilot Cowork agentic AI product as it broadens customer access.
Lightweight open-weight models appeal to businesses because they are cheaper to run than tools like ChatGPT or Claude and can be customized by adjusting model weights.
Satya Nadella said open-weight models are essential to a healthy AI ecosystem, and Microsoft joined more than 200 companies backing them as pro-competition and compatible with national security.
The expansion puts Microsoft on the opposite side of OpenAI and Anthropic, which are lobbying the Trump administration to block or limit Chinese open-source AI in the US.
That split reflects a wider fight over whether low-cost Chinese models will widen AI adoption in the US or be treated as a security and censorship risk.

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If foreign open-weight AI systems are blocked, how will startups survive the skyrocketing costs of a closed-model market?

Could integrating cheaper foreign AI models into American infrastructure secretly expose enterprise data to hidden training vulnerabilities?

Are tech giants pushing to ban foreign AI to protect national security, or just to save their own expensive monopolies?