Open models strengthen the country that hosts them, so restricting their release weakens the very position it means to protect.

5 source(s) assert this claim, 1 deny it.

Who asserts it

8:32 When ChatGPT was first released a few years ago, America was decisively ahead of China in generative AI technology. Since then, China has played its hand really well. One of the things that China did really well was embrace open models because it turns out that when you release models freely for anyone to use, it helps the whole world. Yes, but it helps you even more than it helps the whole world.

China, Open Source & AI Competitiveness | Andrew Ng — 2026-07-29

The United States now faces a similar choice with artificial intelligence. **Our AI leadership will be judged not by one frontier AI model, but by whether the United States builds a strong, open ecosystem that diffuses into every sector.** This is essential for creating opportunities for innovation and prosperity across the country. It requires expanding access to AI, encouraging competition, robust application layers, and giving Americans greater control over the technology they rely on.

Open Weights and American AI Leadership — 2026-07-24

5:52 Yeah. So, to sustain competitive advantage in America, one of the most important things we have to do is support and sustain open models. So just to run through terminology — by the way I think I'm the only person that both Sam and Dario has worked for. And so actually I support OpenAI, Anthropic — I really hope they do well and have fantastic IPOs and so on. So I really hope these great American businesses will succeed. At the same time the tension — the success of these businesses cannot be at the cost of shutting down everyone else's access to open models.

China, Open Source & AI Competitiveness | Andrew Ng — 2026-07-29

Who denies it

This brings me to the [open letter](https://images.nvidia.com/pdf/Open-Weights-and-American-AI-Leadership.pdf). I agree with much of it: open weights expand access to the AI economy, they strengthen competition at least for some use cases, and they give customers greater control. Concerns about distillation should be addressed through targeted legal and commercial frameworks — the same measure I described above.

Our position on open-weights models — 2026-07-27

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