OpenAI is developing an open weights model that will be a generation behind its frontier models, with the intent that it becomes the most widely used open model globally, built in the United States and reflecting democratic values.
“I want the best open weights model in the world to be a US model,” said OpenAI chief product officer Kevin Weil, speaking on China’s DeepSeek at the Hill and Valley Forum. “I want it to be built on democratic values. I don’t want the best open weights model in the world to be a Chinese model.”
“Very grateful to all the developers who spent time with us telling us what they wanted from an open-weights model. The feedback was useful and unexpected, but all doable,” said OpenAI chief Sam Altman in a post on X. “I think we will ship something extraordinary!”
The planned release is intended to provide a capable model for global adoption while limiting the potential for strategic acceleration by adversarial states. “Putting a frontier model out is also accelerative to China,” Weil said. “But we think we can put out a great open weights model that the entire world can adopt.”
The open weights model, while strong, will not represent OpenAI’s most advanced capabilities. “It will not be our frontier model. The way we think about it is probably something like a generation behind,” Weil explained.
Weil clarified that frontier models will remain proprietary. “The critical point there is the frontier models are not open sourced and it’s the smaller models,” he said.
The company’s approach seeks to balance broad access to capable AI systems with national security considerations and value alignment.
OpenAI recently announced a major structural shift by converting its for-profit arm into a public benefit corporation (PBC) while reaffirming that its nonprofit entity will continue to oversee and control the organisation. The company is also planning to acquire AI based coding platform Windsurf.
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