Open-Source AI and Market Creation in China: A PRISMA-SCR Scoping Review

Competition is changing, thanks to open-source and low-cost AI models, which are reducing barriers to development and adoption and moving value creation toward ecosystems, application services, and complementary assets. The evidence of Chinese AI companies' applications of these models in market creation is scattered across the fields of strategic management, innovation, entrepreneurship, information systems, and policy research. This scoping review was conducted with 44 queries grouped into four clusters, with SciSpace Deep Search, SciSpace Full-Text Search, and Google Scholar being searched following the PRISMA-ScR guidance and instructions. A total of 1,183 records were found in the searches, with 997 after eliminating duplicates. An AI-driven ranking process led to the prioritization of 500 records for screening of title and abstract; 497 records were not screened, posing a material risk of selection bias. Only 34 sources (35 full texts) were included in this assessment, all published between 2018 and 2026. Themes that arose were resource-efficient model development, open-source democratization, API-based platform strategies, ecosystem network effects and value innovation in the creation of markets. The most frequented were Business Model Innovation, Platform Ecosystem Theory and Open Innovation, while Disruptive Innovation Theory and Blue Ocean Strategy were used formally in a few cases. Important gaps include longitudinal sustainability, the governance of the ecosystem, international transfer, responses of incumbents, ethics, safety and sovereignty. The review is structured in four steps, from enabling capabilities to strategic configuration, through the ecosystem processes to mapped market outcomes, without making any causal claims.

Open-source AI; low-cost AI models; Chinese AI firms; market creation

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