Two open letters concerning US artificial intelligence policy were issued within four days over the last week. The first, dated July 24, was circulated by Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang and signed by 25 companies, including Microsoft, Palantir, and OpenAI (notably excluding Anthropic). It contends that open-weight models advance cybersecurity, competition, and national sovereignty, and cautions against premature restrictions.
The second, titled Pacing the Frontier and published July 28, was endorsed by more than 1.1K employees of frontier laboratories; OpenAI and Anthropic both endorsed it institutionally. This letter requests that the US government support international work on technical and governance mechanisms to pace automated AI development, without proposing any immediate slowdown.
The timing of these letters coincides with EO 14409, the executive order requiring the Secretaries of the Treasury, War, and Homeland Security to deliver a classified benchmarking process defining the “covered frontier model” threshold and a voluntary pre-release access framework by August 1, 2026, with federal access to designated models capped at 30 days. Reporting suggests drafts have been exchanged and the framework is close to final.
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