Major U.S. technology companies signed a joint open letter on Friday, throwing their support behind open-source artificial intelligence software. This action comes as the Trump administration explores new restrictions targeting Chinese AI laboratories.

The coalition includes Meta, NVIDIA, Microsoft, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and AI startups such as Reflection and Hugging Face. The letter argues that open-weight AI models can promote healthy industry competition and allow a broader range of participants to share in the benefits of the AI sector. Notably absent from the signatories are Google, Amazon, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

While the open letter does not directly mention China, it broadly advocates for supporting the open-source research and development path. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang made his first post on platform X on Friday, stating: "Open-source models can enhance safety, strengthen network defenses, accelerate innovation and technology adoption, and help countries achieve technological sovereignty. The world needs both the best closed-source models and the best open-source models."

The future of the open-source AI industry is currently uncertain. Following the recent release of the Kimi K3 large model by Chinese AI company Moonshot, concerns have grown in the U.S. that Chinese large models could soon challenge the leading products from OpenAI and Anthropic. White House senior official Michael Kratsios accused Moonshot on Wednesday of improperly using Anthropic's intellectual property to train its model, further escalating anxieties on the American side.