- Several AI companies in the US have published an open letter
- The letter campaigns for unrestricted open-weight AI.
- Meanwhile, the US government accuses Moonshot AI of intellectual property theft
Any hopes AI tech journalists might have had of getting through the weekend quietly have been dashed as some of the biggest names in the business shared an open letter in support of open-weight AI models, while the White House accused China of “large-scale” theft from US companies in building its open-weight AI.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang got the ball rolling with his first tweet, linking to a statement advocating open-source AI models, those models that anyone can download, view and edit. Models like this are essential to making AI “more accessible, adaptable, and widely available,” the open letter says.
It is co-signed by a number of well-known technology and artificial intelligence companies, including Meta, Microsoft, Perplexity and IBM. While ChatGPT developer OpenAI, which to date has taken a more closed-model approach, did not appear in Huang’s original post, it has now also backed up the sentiments.
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Essentially, these companies are campaigning for the openness of AI to drive innovation and access, while arguing against “premature restrictions” by governments. It is no coincidence that the US government led by President Trump has recently sought to take a more prominent role in evaluating AI models and deciding when they should be released.
It is also notable that Anthropic and Google are not on the list of sponsors of this open letter. We don’t have any official comment from these companies yet, so it’s hard to judge the reasoning (after all, Google regularly releases open AI models), but it could have something to do with recent accusations directed at Moonshot AI in China.
open and closed
For my first post, I’m sharing a letter signed by @NVIDIA about why open models are important. AI will transform every industry, power every company, and be built by every country. Open models strengthen security and cybersecurity, accelerate innovation and diffusion, and enable sovereignty.… pic.twitter.com/t02bi51N4CJuly 24, 2026
Part of the background to this open letter is that the Chinese company Moonshot AI is accused of distilling Claude’s Fable 5 (closed) model to build its own Kimi K3 (open). In simple terms, distillation works by asking millions of questions to an AI model and using the answers as training data.
It’s something Moonshot AI has denied, while exaggerating the potential of the free-to-download, open-weighted Kimi K3 AI model, launching on Monday, another factor in this open letter now being published. The US government calls it intellectual property theft and has issued some harsh responses.
“We support open source AI and the innovation it unlocks,” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on
What Nvidia, Meta, Microsoft, and the other co-signers of the open letter appear to be doing is trying to get ahead of any possible clampdown by the US government against open weighted models. While everyone agrees that these AI models are beneficial, it is unclear what the next regulatory steps might be.
However, the open letter is vague and general enough that it can be read between the lines in different ways. This may or may not be intended to allude to the Moonshot AI case. What is clear is that we are reaching a critical point for AI regulation and innovation around the world, and everyone has a perspective.
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