‘Broad access to these capable open-weights models created in the US helps expand democratic AI rails,’ OpenAI said.
OpenAI on Aug. 5 released two open-weight language models, the company’s first such release since GPT-2 in 2019.
Open-weight models make their training parameters, or weights, publicly available but tend not to provide access to the source code or datasets. Open-source models typically include access to the source code, weights, and methodologies.
With weights publicly accessible, developers can analyze and fine-tune a model for specific tasks without requiring original training data.
The weights for the new gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b models are free to download for developers to fine-tune and deploy in their own environments, OpenAI said.
“These open models also lower barriers for emerging markets, resource-constrained sectors, and smaller organizations that may lack the budget or flexibility to adopt proprietary models,” OpenAI said in an Aug. 5 statement. “Broad access to these capable open-weights models created in the US helps expand democratic AI rails.”
Amazon announced on Aug. 6 that OpenAI’s open-weight models are now available on its Bedrock generative AI marketplace in Amazon Web Services. It marks the first time an OpenAI model has been offered on Bedrock, Amazon said in a statement.
In May, Meta announced a collaboration with Red Hat to advance open-source AI for enterprise.
American AI companies and the Trump administration have been in broad agreement about the need for the United States to dominate the AI space, which requires the wide adoption of the American AI stack, including the hardware, models, software, applications, and standards.
On July 23, the White House released its AI action plan, which involves removing barriers for companies to accelerate innovation and build out infrastructure, along with using diplomacy to set AI standards internationally.
Chinese AI companies currently dominate the open-source space. Republican senators recently signed a letter asking the Commerce Department to examine data security risks and potential backdoors in Chinese open-source models such as DeepSeek.
Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei told Chinese state-run media in June that Chinese AI development will include “thousands upon thousands of open-source software.” Chinese state-run media Global Times on Aug. 7 published an editorial opining that US efforts to curb China’s AI strategy would fail, as “China has embraced an open-source approach” to meet its vast needs.
