Tech Giants Unite: Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Google, and OpenAI Jointly Defend Open-Weight AI Models

At a critical turning point in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), dozens of tech giants, startups, and research institutions—including Nvidia (NVDA-US), Microsoft (MSFT-US), Meta (META-US), Google (GOOGL-US), and OpenAI—jointly signed an open letter last Friday (24th), strongly urging U.S. policymakers not to suppress 'open-weight' AI models.

This rare show of unity aims to defend the openness of AI technology and respond to recent concerns from Washington about potential security risks associated with such technologies.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasized the importance of open models in his first post on the social platform X. He stated: 'AI will transform every industry, empower every company, and be built by every nation.'

He believes that open models not only enhance security and cybersecurity but also accelerate the diffusion of technological innovation and allow countries to maintain technological 'sovereignty' when developing AI. This view has received public support from Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

The release of this open letter comes amid U.S. government officials expressing serious concerns about the Chinese AI company 'Moonshot AI' and its model Kimi K3. Kimi K3 is currently regarded as one of the most powerful open-weight models globally, but Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, publicly accused the model of being derived from Anthropic's Fable 5 model through 'distillation.' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent even likened this technical approach to 'theft' and hinted at possible sanctions against related companies.

The signatories counter in the letter that U.S. leadership in AI should not be defined by a single model, but by the ability to build a robust open ecosystem. Regarding the so-called 'distillation' technique, the tech giants argue it is an indispensable part of AI innovation, and any illegal extraction of value should be addressed through targeted legal frameworks rather than broad restrictions that hinder innovation.

Currently, 32 organizations, including Cisco, IBM, GitHub, and the Linux Foundation, have joined the endorsement. Among major AI vendors, only Anthropic has not yet expressed support for open models.