CNAS held a live discussion on Thursday, September 3, from 3:00–4:00 p.m. ET on The AI Open-Weight Debate: Balancing Innovation and Security. This event unpacked the growing debate about the diffusion of increasingly capable Chinese open-weight models, the trade-offs of potential restrictions on the open-weight ecosystem, and the implications of any policy action for innovation, national security, and geopolitical competition.

The event featured, Chris McGuire, senior fellow for China and emerging technologies at the Council on Foreign Relations; Ian Reynolds, AI public policy manager at Hugging Face; and Stella Biderman, executive director at EleutherAI. The conversation was moderated by Daniel Remler, senior fellow for the Technology and National Security Program at CNAS.