American leadership in artificial intelligence will be decided not by research prowess alone but by whether U.S. models become the default choice for governments, companies, and developers worldwide, 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 AI.
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 standard. SCSP staff point to the wireless industry as a cautionary tale: 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 now 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, and that the advantage comes not from openness itself but from the adoption it enables.
The United States needs a strategy that builds on its distinctive strengths, according to the memo. While there are trust and security concerns regarding Chinese open models, the American response should be to strengthen its own open model ecosystem. 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. First, Build the AI Ecosystem America Can Win: expanding access to compute, capital, and shared infrastructure will support a thriving open AI ecosystem, allowing researchers, startups, and governments to inspect, adapt, and trust American models. Second, Turn Leadership into Adoption: fund tools that show a model works for its purpose, aggregate and share working deployments, and measure cost, time to complete, and mission outcomes to accelerate adoption across society. Third, Govern American AI Without Making It Inaccessible: govern 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 for U.S. businesses, developers, and policymakers. If Chinese open models become the foundation for global AI development, American firms could face higher costs, reduced influence over standards, and greater security risks. The memo’s recommendations suggest that U.S. competitiveness depends on making American AI the practical choice for users worldwide, not just the most advanced option. For industry, that means opportunities in open-source development, shared infrastructure, and deployment tools. For the wider world, the race to diffuse AI will shape which values and safeguards are embedded in the technology that governments and companies rely on.
SCSP’s memo is a call to action for a coordinated national effort. As the report notes, leadership matters only if American AI becomes the default choice. Readers can learn more about the initiative at scsp.ai.
