- In a soft-on-regulation Trump administration, the future of open-source AI is up for debate
- Many AI startups and small companies support open-source AI freedoms to loosen "Big Tech's" grip on the market
- But some conservatives argue open systems threaten national interests
Supporters of the Trump administration are split on whether to support open-source artificial intelligence. While Vice President-elect JD Vance publicly supports the technology, some China hawks and other conservatives are concerned about risks to U.S. competitiveness.
The Trump camp's opposition to “woke” AI regulations will likely dismantle Biden-era rules and reshape the field. Vance said in a social media post last March that open source is "the solution" to left-wing biases taking over the information economy.
Last year, President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI tasked the U.S. Commerce Department to collect expert input on the advantages and risks of open AI models.
The White House issued a report July 30 that supports open-source AI. The NTIA’s report said “current evidence is not sufficient” to warrant restrictions on AI models with “widely available weights.” However, Alan Davidson, assistant secretary of the U.S. Commerce Department, said in an interview with The Associated Press that U.S. officials must continue to monitor potential dangers and “take steps to ensure that the government is prepared to act if heightened risks emerge.”
Now, that responsibility will belong to the Trump administration.
Who stands to gain? ‘Big’ vs. ‘Little tech’ and defining open source
As Stratechery analyst Ben Thompson wrote last week, "Little Tech" is often in favor of no limits on open source models, while "Big Tech" wants regulations that reinforce their distribution advantages.
Thompson noted that pattern has been made clear amid several EU regulations: while “Big Tech” didn’t like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) policy, adopted in 2016, "it cemented their advantage." It’s a good "rule of thumb to assume that while no one wants more regulation, regulation does in the end only deepen the moat for 'Big Tech'," Thompson wrote.
Yet open source might not be so bad for "Big Tech," either, said Omdia analyst Brad Shimmin. Big tech firms have long used open source strategically to capture markets, as seen with Google’s success in open-sourcing TensorFlow, to attract data scientists. While ChatGPT-maker OpenAI advocates closing off their models’ inner workings to guard against misuse, other big-tech leaders such as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg have lobbied for a more open approach that he says favors innovation.
“So, I've got to think that we won't lose open source,” Shimmin told Fierce Network.
Instead, Shimmin's biggest concern is that the industry might “muddy what open source means.” Despite efforts to better define open source, the shift toward "community licensing" over traditional open-source models risks blurring the line between proprietary and open software, complicating regulation.
“I think the harder it is to legislate, and the harder it is to separate out what is proprietary from open, that is harmful to the overall market,” Shimmin added.
In the battle with China for AI dominance, is open source friend or foe?
Open source is “perhaps the most important innovation engine that's driving artificial intelligence that we have right now," and must be protected, Shimmin said.
But the open source question also has strong ties to national security concerns, including how the U.S. can counter China’s rapid AI advancements. China has a substantial lead, holding approximately 38,000 AI patents compared to 6,300 in the U.S.
In Project 2025, FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr argues that many U.S. companies unknowingly aid Beijing’s goal of global AI dominance, which China expects to achieve by 2030. In part, the U.S. companies are aiding China by providing "access to their high-powered cloud computing services,” according to Carr.
Reconciling open-source freedoms with the risk of aiding foreign adversaries will create a "huge tension" across agencies, analyst Adam Thierer from R Street said. “The number one tension on AI policy will be whether open source is treated as a friend or foe.”
In what Thierer called “intellectual schizophrenia at work,” some conservatives in the Trump camp seem to push for open source to drive competition domestically, yet also advocate restricting exports of high-power computational and open-source systems to China.
“JD Vance and other conservatives have expressed sort of warmness toward the idea of open-source AI as a competitor to so-called big tech,” Thierer told Fierce. “And that is an interesting position for conservatives to hold, because there are still many other conservatives, especially hawkish national security conservatives, who are deeply suspicious of open-source technologies, and have been for many decades, especially because broadly open source systems could be utilized by the Chinese government itself. That tension will be at work throughout the Trump years.”
Read our reporting on what to expect from the Trump 2.0 administration here.