35 Companies Warn Washington Against Curbing Open-Source AI as Open Models Do 33% of Work
Updated
Updated · O'Reilly Media · Aug 18
35 Companies Warn Washington Against Curbing Open-Source AI as Open Models Do 33% of Work
3 articles · Updated · O'Reilly Media · Aug 18
Summary
An open letter backed by 35 companies including Microsoft, Palantir and Andreessen Horowitz urged Washington not to over-restrict open-source AI, arguing openness strengthens safety, cybersecurity and innovation.
Jensen Huang amplified the July 24 letter in his first X post, and support spread to Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg before the Open Secure AI Alliance launched to build shared safety tools.
Mozilla said open models now handle about one-third of global AI work but capture only 4% of revenue, even as 79% of developers build with them and performance gaps with proprietary systems narrow.
The report frames that mismatch as the real policy fight: proprietary labs want tighter control over models and surrounding software layers, while open-source backers say value and user power increasingly sit in those wrappers.
The dispute lands amid a broader U.S.-China split, with Washington emphasizing control for national security while Beijing pushes wider adoption of open-source AI to spread its technology globally.