Why open-source AI became an American national priority

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When President Trump released the U.S. AI Action Plan last week, many were surprised to see “encourage open-source and open-weight AI,” as one of the administration’s top priorities. The White House has elevated what was once a highly technical topic into an urgent national concern — and a key strategy to winning the AI race against China.

China’s emphasis on open source, also highlighted in its own Action Plan released shortly after the U.S., makes the open-source race imperative. And the global soft power that comes with more open models from China makes their recent leadership even more notable. 

When DeepSeek-R1, a powerful open-source large language model (LLM) out of China, was released earlier this year, it didn’t come with a press tour. No flashy demos. No keynote speeches. But it was open weights and open science. Open weight means anyone with the right skills and computing resources can run, replicate, or make a model their own; open science shares some of the tricks behind the model development.

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