OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged that China’s surge in open-source artificial intelligence played a key role in the company’s decision to release its own open-weight models earlier this month.
Speaking during a media briefing, Altman said the rise of Chinese-developed models was a decisive factor.
“It was clear that if we didn’t do it, the world was gonna be mostly built on Chinese open-source models. That was a factor in our decision, for sure. Wasn’t the only one, but that loomed large,” CNBC quoted him as saying.
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On August 5, OpenAI launched two open-weight models—gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b—marking its first return to publicly available model weights since GPT-2 in 2019. The larger of the two models is designed for high-performance machines, while the smaller can run on most desktops and laptops. The move enables developers to download, run, and fine-tune the models locally, a sharp contrast to the company’s closed releases of GPT-3, GPT-4, and the current GPT-5, which remain proprietary.
Altman said on X that the models were meant to align with OpenAI’s mission “to ensure AGI that benefits all of humanity.” By making the models open and free, he argued, the company was ensuring that AI development would be built on a foundation rooted in democratic values rather than dominated by Chinese alternatives.
The timing underscores intensifying U.S.–China competition in AI. Beijing-backed startup DeepSeek shook the industry in January when it unveiled R1, a high-performing open-source and open-weight model that quickly gained traction because of its affordability and efficiency. The development was seen in Washington as a strategic threat. President Donald Trump told GOP lawmakers that DeepSeek’s rise was both a “positive” demonstration of AI’s potential and a “wake-up call” for U.S. companies to accelerate innovation.
Altman himself hinted months earlier that OpenAI would eventually change course on openness. During a Reddit AMA in January, he admitted, “I personally think we have been on the wrong side of history here and need to figure out a different open source strategy.”
The release of gpt-oss also places OpenAI alongside other American companies, such as Meta, which has made its Llama models open-source. However, Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg has cautioned that openness requires restraint, writing last month that the company must be “careful about what we choose to open source.”
Industry analysts say OpenAI’s move reflects both competitive pressure and strategic positioning. The company hopes to prevent Chinese models from becoming the default foundation for global AI applications by re-entering the open-weight space. At the same time, the release could help smaller developers, researchers, and startups—many of whom lack the resources to access or build massive proprietary systems.
With U.S. firms and Chinese rivals racing to shape the future of AI, Altman’s latest remarks highlight how geopolitical rivalry, corporate competition, and philosophical debates over openness are colliding in one of the most consequential technology battles of the century.