US Tech Giants Urge Support for Open-Weight AI Models to Maintain Global Lead
A coalition of 25 leading US technology companies, including Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, and Andreessen Horowitz, has sent a joint letter to the Trump administration urging support for open-weight artificial intelligence (AI) models. The firms argue that open-weight AI is crucial for maintaining America's technological edge and warn against premature restrictions that could stifle innovation.
The appeal comes as Washington considers tighter controls on advanced AI technologies amid rising competition from Chinese AI companies. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, a vocal advocate of open-weight AI, shared the letter publicly. 'The world needs both frontier closed models and frontier open models,' he wrote.
This is the second letter this week urging a favourable approach to open-weight AI. Earlier, the Little Tech Association, representing over 200 startups, wrote to science adviser Michael Kratsios and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick arguing that restricting access to AI models abroad could weaken US startups and create a monopoly for big tech firms.
Open-weight AI models allow developers to download the trained parameters—or 'weights'—and run them on their own infrastructure. This gives organisations greater control over how the model is used, modified, and deployed without relying entirely on the creator. Unlike fully open-source AI, open-weight models typically release the weights but not necessarily the training data or source code.
Supporters compare open-weight AI to the open-source software movement that powered the internet, with Linux as a key example. They argue that open models can make AI cheaper and more accessible. Training advanced AI models can cost billions of dollars, putting it out of reach for most startups, universities, and governments. Open-weight models allow developers to build on existing models rather than starting from scratch, lowering barriers to entry.
The signatories include Meta, Microsoft, IBM, Nvidia, Hugging Face, Dell, Mozilla, Box, ServiceNow, and CrowdStrike among others. The letter emphasizes that open-weight AI strengthens safety and cybersecurity, accelerates innovation, and enables digital sovereignty. However, critics worry that open models could be misused for malicious purposes or that they enable competitors to copy innovations.
The debate reflects a broader divide in Silicon Valley: companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google prefer proprietary systems, while others push for openness. As AI becomes a key arena for global competition, the US government's decision could shape the future of the technology.
