Tech Industry Backs Open AI; Anthropic Faces Criticism for Silence

The technology industry has rallied to support "open-weight AI," but a prominent AI developer, Anthropic, has remained conspicuously silent. As the U.S. government considers restricting certain Chinese AI models, Anthropic is drawing widespread criticism from Silicon Valley peers for failing to sign a public letter advocating for open-weight AI.

Last week, over 20 companies, including Nvidia, Meta, and Microsoft, jointly signed an open letter titled "Open Weights and American AI Leadership," which supports open-weight AI. This type of model allows developers to download weights and modify and deploy models on their own infrastructure. Over the weekend, AI giants including OpenAI, Google, and SpaceX also added their names to the letter.

As of Monday, the only major, cutting-edge AI lab not supporting this industry initiative was Anthropic. The developer of the Claude model has consequently faced growing scrutiny. "The entire tech industry is publicly supporting open AI, except for Anthropic," said venture capitalist and former Trump administration advisor David Sacks.

Anthropic has not responded to media requests for comment. CEO Dario Amodei has previously stated that releasing model weights would mean developers lose control over cutting-edge AI models, indicating a preference for "controlled openness" with high-performance models. Recently, Chinese AI company Moonshot AI released its open-weight model Kimi K3, which rivals top U.S. closed-source models. The U.S. government has explored sanctions against Chinese models if they are found to have used data from U.S. models via distillation, a technique that could violate terms of service.

The tech industry continues its push for open AI. Nvidia has launched the "Open Secure AI Alliance" to promote open AI models in cybersecurity. An alignment with or divergence from major industry players on this issue could shape company strategies and market positions moving forward.