China AI Video: Seedance 2.5 Closed, MiniMax H3 Open

Two major AI video models are taking very different approaches. ByteDance has rolled out Seedance 2.5 as a closed system, available to Chinese consumers through platforms like Jimeng AI and Doubao. Its API access will come via Volcano Engine's Ark platform. What's interesting is that MiniMax simultaneously released H3, a competing AI video model. MiniMax plans to release H3's model weights, allowing developers to download and run it locally, without MiniMax servers. Seedance 2.5 can generate a continuous, unbroken 30-second video clip in a single pass. This is an improvement over its previous model, which could only produce 15-second clips natively. This matters because it presents a fundamental choice for anyone creating video with AI.