Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27 · primary
Themes: US-China Framing · Closed vs. Open Split · Safety Debate
Distillation from closed frontier models, not independent invention, is what let Chinese labs close the distance to the frontier.
- **We should not sell powerful chips or chipmaking equipment to China**, and we should crack down on the rampant [smuggling](https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/three-charged-conspiring-unlawfully-divert-cutting-edge-us-artificial-intelligence)[^3] and workarounds used to obtain access to such chips. China has limited domestic production capacity, and therefore, due to the [scaling laws](https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08361), cannot build more powerful models than the US without US chips.
Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27
Architectural and training efficiency is what lets a latecomer reach the frontier, so scarce compute is not disqualifying.
Restricting chips and stopping industrial-scale distillation is the effective way to slow a rival's frontier, and licensing models is not.
To summarize my and Anthropic's position, we have not and are not advocating for a ban on open-weights models as a category. We should instead focus on keeping powerful chips out of authoritarian hands, stopping industrial-scale distillation, and requiring safety testing of all sufficiently capable models, open and closed.
Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27
Distillation does not allow the CCP to obtain equivalent or superior AI capabilities to the US, but it can bring the Chinese frontier to within a [few months](https://www.anthropic.com/research/2028-ai-leadership) of the US frontier. It is true that many of the companies carrying out these operations release open-weights models — but the open weights are far less relevant than the fact that the operations are backed by an authoritarian state seeking to overtake the US at the frontier. We should have policy interventions to deter this behavior.
Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27
Capable models should be required to pass pre-release testing, binding open weights and closed APIs alike.
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
I think this idea is actually close to a consensus: I have been heartened both that the Trump administration has moved in this direction in recent months, and by [recent industry proposals](https://demishassabis.substack.com/p/a-framework-for-frontier-ai-and-the-dawning-of-a-new-age) that would apply such testing to the most capable models regardless of their country of origin or whether they are open or closed (while exempting less capable models, such as those from startups and academia, entirely).
Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27
To address these concerns, I *do* support the following three measures, which I and Anthropic have consistently advocated for:
Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27
Open models strengthen the country that hosts them, so restricting their release weakens the very position it means to protect.
Releasing model weights raises the risk of catastrophic misuse, because guardrails cannot be applied and usage cannot be monitored once the weights are out.
In fact, the most dangerous model may be one that is trained in secret and handed only to the People's Liberation Army for use in drones and the Ministry of State Security for surveillance and repression. 2. My secondary concern is the risk that powerful AI models may be misused to carry out cyberattacks or biological attacks, and may have [serious alignment problems](https://time.com/article/2026/07/24/openai-hugging-face-attack/).
Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27
Protectionist bans would not address my most serious national security concerns. Specifically, I am worried about two nightmare scenarios. I laid these out in my essay [*The Adolescence of Technology*](https://darioamodei.com/essay/the-adolescence-of-technology) six months ago[^1], and have held these positions consistently for many years:
Our position on open-weights models · 2026-07-27
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