25 tech firms urge US to avoid broad openweight AI bans

A coalition of 25 major technology companies and venture capital firms has issued a public letter urging U.S. policymakers to avoid broad restrictions on openweight artificial intelligence models, framing the issue as critical for American competitiveness and innovation. The joint statement, titled "Open Weights and American AI Leadership," was published on July 24, 2026, and notably promoted by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang in his first-ever post on the social media platform X.

Signatories include Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, IBM, Dell, Palantir, Mistral AI, Hugging Face, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz. The letter argues that openweight models, whose core parameters are publicly released for anyone to download and modify, are essential for fostering competition, lowering deployment costs, and enabling a global research community to improve AI safety and security. It calls on lawmakers to expand access to computing infrastructure for startups, invest in shared public AI assets, and reject premature restrictions that could stifle competition or drive innovation overseas.

The advocacy comes amid a heated policy debate in Washington over how to respond to allegations of intellectual...