Nvidia, 24 other firms sign open-weights letter as US weighs Chinese AI model ban

Published Jul 24, 06:31 PM UTC

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang used his first X post to promote an open-weights policy letter co-signed by 25 companies including Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, Dell, Palantir, and Hugging Face. The letter urges Washington to avoid premature restrictions on downloadable AI models, coming days after reports that the Trump administration is reviving a push to ban Chinese AI models. Notably absent from signatories are OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google. The letter argues for expanded compute access for startups and researchers, public investment in shared datasets, and urges policymakers not to treat model distillation as misappropriation. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration would examine Chinese open-source models for IP theft, while Huang stated American firms should be allowed to use Chinese models.