The letter from Nvidia and other companies acknowledges concerns about technology theft but argues that it should be addressed ‘through targeted legal and commercial mechanisms rather than blanket restrictions’.
SAN FRANCISCO, United States – Nvidia, Microsoft, and other tech giants made a public case to lawmakers Friday, July 24, in favor of open AI models, entering a debate that has sparked the business and policy worlds over who controls the powerful technology.
In a letter sent to X and also signed by several companies and groups including Meta Platforms and IBM, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that lawmakers should prevent “premature restrictions on open models that restrict competition or drive innovation abroad.”
The letter adds to the growing debate over open-source models that are difficult to control, such as Nvidia’s own and those released in recent weeks by Chinese laboratories, and open-source models controlled by specialized companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.
In recent months, Silicon Valley business leaders have been frustrated by the cost of closed source models. The CEOs of Microsoft and defense contractor Palantir Technologies have argued publicly that open-source software architectures that their customers can run inside their data centers will help control AI costs.
Technology leaders are also frustrated with the controls that OpenAI and Anthropic build into their models. Hugging FaceAI co-authoring site that was hacked by a rough example of OpenAIthis week it said that it had to use an open-source Chinese model to defend against the attack because closed-source models have restrictions on use for cyber security work.
Meanwhile, US lawmakers are alarmed by proposals for a flawed OpenAI cyberattack law that would require a “kill switch” for AI models, and President Donald Trump’s administration is considering sanctions on Chinese open-source model makers for allegedly stealing American-source technology.
The letter from Nvidia and other companies acknowledged concerns about technology theft but said it should be addressed “through targeted legal and commercial mechanisms rather than broad restrictions.”
“Relying solely on closed models is inherently insecure: they can be breached, misused, or failed in ways that outsiders cannot detect,” the letter said. “Open-weight models, on the other hand, allow a wider community of researchers and developers to examine their behavior, identify vulnerabilities, develop protections, and improve them over time.” – Rappler.com
