Technological leadership in artificial intelligence matters only if American AI becomes the default choice for governments, companies, and developers, according to a new memo from the Special Competitive Studies Project (SCSP), a nonprofit and nonpartisan initiative aimed at strengthening America's long-term competitiveness in artificial intelligence. The memo, titled “The Open Frontier: How America Wins the AI Diffusion Race,” explains that open models will help determine which technology ecosystem becomes the global default.
SCSP staff point to a cautionary precedent: although the U.S. led the world in wireless research, Huawei won the diffusion race and connected much of the globe by out-competing on cost, financing, and speed of deployment. China is implementing a similar strategy with AI, and its capable, low-cost, downloadable models are drawing developers. The memo notes that developer adoption has shifted measurably toward Chinese open models. The advantage, it says, comes not from openness itself but from the adoption it enables.
The United States needs a strategy that builds on its distinctive strengths. While there are trust and security concerns regarding Chinese open models, the American response should be to strengthen its own open model ecosystem, according to the memo. Currently, leading U.S. frontier laboratories monetize access through subscriptions, enterprise products, and managed platforms. But a strong American strategy should also support open model developers and the researchers, startups, and businesses that build on their work.
The memo outlines three lines of effort. The first, “Build the AI Ecosystem America Can Win,” calls for expanding access to compute, capital, and shared infrastructure to support a thriving open AI ecosystem. Researchers, startups, and governments can then inspect, adapt, and trust American models. The second, “Turn Leadership into Adoption,” recommends funding tools that show a model works for its purpose, aggregating and sharing working deployments, and measuring cost, time to complete, and mission outcomes to accelerate adoption of American AI across society. The third, “Govern American AI Without Making It Inaccessible,” urges governing risk based on what models can do, how they are used, and their impacts and outcomes, not simply whether their weights are public.
The implications are significant. If American open models are not widely adopted, the global AI ecosystem could increasingly be shaped by Chinese standards and technologies. By focusing on adoption, the U.S. can ensure that its values and security interests are embedded in the AI systems used worldwide. The memo's recommendations offer a roadmap for policymakers and industry to collaborate on maintaining American leadership in the AI era.
For more information, visit scsp.ai.
