White House AI Rules Exempt Open Models, Testing Only 3 Closed Firms

The Trump administration's new AI framework exempts U.S. open-weight models from pre-release government testing, leaving only makers of closed, proprietary models with state-of-the-art cybersecurity capabilities subject to voluntary review.

"Companies that choose to collaborate with the administration through this framework are putting American innovation, security and cyber defense first," White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said.

The framework, discussed with executives from leading AI companies Tuesday, stems from a June executive order. OpenAI delayed its latest tools while the administration completed the framework, and Anthropic had two versions of its Mythos model shut down after the White House raised security concerns. Tools from Anthropic, OpenAI and Alphabet's Google are likely to fall under the testing requirement, while Nvidia, Meta Platforms and Elon Musk's SpaceX may not.

The exemption gives Nvidia and other open-weight developers a regulatory advantage in the race against Chinese AI companies, which the administration is considering restricting. Trump said last week that China has "virtually no controls" on AI, and the U.S. must balance safety with competitiveness.

The general definition of state-of-the-art capabilities could be interpreted differently by makers of closed models and the White House, potentially creating confusion about which models fall into the category, people familiar with the matter said. While the testing is voluntary, industry executives have said it would be risky to bypass the government review, particularly if safety concerns were raised after the fact.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, a staunch proponent of open-weight tools, has been among the executives discussing AI oversight with the White House in recent weeks. Nvidia designs the chips needed to run AI models and also makes its own AI tools. The company's open-weight models initially will be exempt but might have to eventually submit tools for testing as they get more powerful, the people said.

China's Cheaper Open Models Raise the Stakes

Impressive new open-weight tools from Chinese companies that are cheaper to use have raised the stakes for AI regulation. The administration is considering restrictions on some Chinese companies accused of training their models using recent advances by U.S. competitors. Some executives at Anthropic and OpenAI have pushed for the crackdown.

But Huang and many other tech leaders have stressed the importance of open-weight models, with Trump caught in the middle, hoping AI and the data centers that drive them can continue benefiting the economy. "China has virtually no controls," Trump said in the Oval Office last week. "It's freewheeling a little bit. So we have to be careful in both ways. We don't want to restrict them where all of a sudden we come in second to China."

National Cyber Director Sean Cairncross and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent are among the officials leading the AI work and increasing attention on security risks, while White House AI adviser David Sacks, a venture capitalist, has advocated for a lighter touch that lets models naturally proliferate and be used to defend against cyberattacks.

Skeptics of the administration's approach say the voluntary pledges are inadequate to contain the risks posed by new models and that the plan could unfairly benefit smaller companies that don't have to follow the guidelines. Determining which models must follow stricter rules has proved challenging for years. The Biden administration used a quantitative approach to gauge the power of AI models, but critics said the measure was incomplete and lacked context.

Executives at the AI companies, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Dario Amodei of Anthropic, say they welcome more government involvement in the industry as long as the system is fair and transparent. They have called for the administration to work with governments around the world to create global AI oversight that gives consumers more confidence in the industry.

The framework's impact will become clearer as the administration finalizes restrictions on Chinese AI companies and as open-weight models from U.S. developers grow more powerful. For now, the regulatory split gives Nvidia and other open-weight advocates a clear path forward, while closed-model companies face the prospect of government review before every major release.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.