Nvidia CEO says ban Chinese open-source AI models — embrace them instead

Huang's intervention represents a striking contrast to the escalating anxiety in Washington over Chinese AI capabilities. The White House has reportedly explored executive action to impose security conditions and liability requirements on U.S. companies using Chinese models, driven partly by surveillance concerns and partly by worry that low-cost alternatives could undercut homegrown AI businesses. Kimi K3's release last week — capable enough to compete with Anthropic's top public model — crystallized those fears.

Huang's rebuttal centers on two claims: first, that open-source models are not inherently a security risk (they are downloadable and customizable, not a covert vector), and second, that Chinese and American models can coexist productively. His logic is blunt economic self-interest: more AI use anywhere means more compute demand, and Nvidia supplies the chips that run all AI, whether open or closed. The gap in pricing — Kimi K3 at $15 per million tokens versus Fable 5 at $50 — explains why companies are switching, and Huang's position effectively acknowledges that restriction would be economically futile and strategically backward.