Zuckerberg urges open-source AI as Meta unveils PC-capable model

Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on Monday called for lower barriers to open-source artificial intelligence as the company unveiled a new model designed to run on a personal computer.

What Meta announced

Meta said it will open the weights for its latest AI model so the public can download them, and that it will release a new class of open-source models meant to run on laptops. The company described weights as the calculations or rules that govern how an AI system behaves.

Zuckerberg’s argument for open AI

In a long essay on Meta’s website, Zuckerberg argued that AI should be distributed broadly rather than centralised.

“Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it,”

he wrote, and he criticised labs that he said are “focused on building AI for companies, governments or other institutions,” which he said could shift the balance of power toward institutions instead of individuals.

Policy backdrop and competition

The launch comes amid debate in the United States about whether access to advanced AI should be more restricted. US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in June setting up a voluntary federal review of national security risks in advanced AI models before their release, the company noted.

Zuckerberg also said foreign labs hold advantages because US labs must comply with restrictions on training data. He wrote,

“I do not believe restricting access to foreign open source models is an effective solution. Our goal should be for American open source models to be the best globally. This requires removing the hurdles that make it harder for American open source models to compete,”

according to Meta’s post.

Data centres, spending and community fund

As public opposition to data centre buildouts grows, Meta said it is launching a fund to support communities around its facilities. A Meta spokesperson said the size of the fund is $1 billion.

The company has reaffirmed plans to keep spending heavily on the data centres and chips underpinning its AI effort and expects capital expenditures of up to $145 billion this year, nearly doubling the amount it spent in 2025, the report said.

Where competitors stand

The article noted that competitors OpenAI and Anthropic largely focus on closed AI models.

What this means

The move signals Meta’s push to make powerful AI more widely accessible by releasing models and weights to the public, while also pressing a policy argument that American open-source models should be made more competitive globally.