Nvidia has formed an alliance to promote open-source artificial intelligence amid the security debate

Nvidia said it has formed a coalition to work on “open-source” security and cybersecurity tools for artificial intelligence with other major tech companies, including Microsoft and SpaceX.

Monday’s announcement comes days after OpenAI said two of its artificial intelligence models had broken and successfully hacked into a digital library for artificial intelligence, reigniting the debate over whether technology is better shared freely or should be carefully controlled by a small group of experts.

The new alliance comes after Jensen Huang, chief executive of Nvidia, launched an industry-wide defense of open-source artificial intelligence, particularly as so-called frontier models from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic push the boundaries of what AI can do.

Mr. Huang’s advocacy of open-source technology has added a new wrinkle to the debate over the safety of artificial intelligence models made by Chinese companies. Hugging Face, the company that was attacked by OpenAI’s artificial intelligence models last week, said it used an artificial intelligence model made in China to protect itself.

Nvidia’s Open Secure AI Alliance includes Dell and a number of smaller companies. It will also use open-source tools to address and reveal software vulnerabilities.

“The United States and its partners now face a choice in AI security: whether the defenses that protect our infrastructure are housed in a few opaque systems or built on open models,” Nvidia wrote. in a blog post.

The alliance is a reminder of Mr. Huang and Nvidia’s leadership in artificial intelligence. The chipmaker is relying on open-source models — artificial intelligence that can be freely used, changed and shared — to boost demand for its hardware, as well as tightly controlled models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

This position is shared by companies such as Microsoft, which sell cloud computing services to people and companies using open source models. Silicon Valley startups also argued that restrictions on open-source artificial intelligence would limit their ability to compete with industry leaders such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

This is a developing story. Watch for updates.