Exclusive: Nvidia's Jensen Huang defends Chinese AI amid Kimi panic
Axios · LC · trust 42/100
Add Axios on Google Open embedded content from cdn.jwplayer.com Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang believes America has nothing to fear from China's open-source AI models — and everything to fear from the growing campaign to ban them.
Why it matters: The world's top AI chipmaker says American companies should "absolutely" be allowed to use Chinese models — a direct challenge to Trump officials and the U.S. labs lobbying Washington to shut them out.
Among them are Nvidia's own customers, OpenAI and Anthropic , which have accused Chinese rivals of siphoning capabilities from their models and warned that Beijing's open-source surge threatens America's AI lead.
The big picture: The release of Kimi K3 by Beijing-based Moonshot AI has triggered the most intense bout of AI panic since DeepSeek rattled financial markets in January 2025.
Zoom in: Huang says Wall Street and Washington have the Kimi shock exactly backward.
Zoom out: When it comes to policy, Huang believes restricting open models in the name of national security could leave America more vulnerable.
Huang applied the same logic to American models, and called for Anthropic to make its restricted cyber model, Claude Mythos , available to "everyone" rather than limiting access.
Between the lines: Huang sees the AI race itself very differently from Washington, where some Trump advisers have cast China's gains as a five-alarm threat to U.S. dominance.
The intrigue: Huang's comments came hours after Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business that the administration is examining Chinese AI models for stolen U.S. intellectual property — and considering sanctions in response.
Huang drew a different conclusion. "Distillation, learning from AI, learning from other sources of knowledge, is fundamental to intelligence," he told Axios.
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