Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, attends an event at Station F on the sidelines of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris, France, Feb. 11. AP-Yonhap

OpenAI is keen to collaborate with China, according to chief executive Sam Altman, in a 180-degree turn for the company nearly eight months after tightening measures that barred the mainland and other "unsupported countries and territories" from accessing ChatGPT and its other artificial intelligence (AI) services.

"We'd like to work with China," Altman told Sky News on the sidelines of the Paris AI Action Summit, held from Feb. 10 to 11 in the French capital, according to a clip from the interview posted on the British broadcaster's website.

"Should we try as hard as we can [to work with China]? Absolutely, yes. I think that's really important," Altman said in the clip, without specifying which areas OpenAI and the world's second-largest economy would cover.

While admitting he did not know whether the U.S. government would let OpenAI work with China, Altman said he considered it important to pursue collaboration.

Altman's public about-face from OpenAI's tough stance on China reflects how Hangzhou-based DeepSeek upended the global AI industry, following its release of two powerful open-source AI models, V3 and R1, which were developed at a fraction of the cost and computing power typically required by major tech companies to build large language models (LLMs) — the technology underpinning generative AI services like ChatGPT.

Open source gives public access to a program's source code, allowing third-party software developers to modify or share its design, fix broken links or scale up its capabilities. Open-source technologies have been a huge contributor to China's flourishing tech industry over the past few decades.

Altman recently said OpenAI was on the "wrong side of history" regarding its proprietary models, citing the advances made by open-source models.

The Deepseek logo / Reuters-Yonhap

DeepSeek's more cost-efficient development of powerful models, compared with what bigger tech companies spend, also shows how far Chinese AI firms have progressed, despite U.S. sanctions that have largely blocked their access to advanced semiconductors used for training LLMs.

DeepSeek's efficient development strategy also raised questions about the valuation of major AI players like chip supplier Nvidia and the need for massive tech infrastructure investments such as the $500 billion Stargate Project.

Meanwhile, Chinese academics who attended the AI summit in Paris touted DeepSeek's contribution to the global AI market and called for more international collaboration to address safety concerns and challenges arising from the technology's development.

DeepSeek founder and chief executive Liang Wenfeng, who was reportedly invited to the summit, did not show up at the event.

Senior government officials, technology companies and industry leaders gathered at the summit to discuss international collaboration on AI safety. Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Guoqing said at the event that Beijing would work with other countries to safeguard security and build a community with a "shared future for mankind", according to a report by Xinhua.

As of Wednesday, access to San Francisco-based OpenAI's services remain unavailable in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau without a virtual private network connection or link via special third-party platforms. China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and Syria are not part of the more than 180 markets where OpenAI is currently available, according to the firm's website.

Read the full story at SCMP.