Introduction
Welcome back to Laboratory. This week, we unpack America’s open-source turn: why Washington just put open weights and open science on the national to-do list, and how that move could rewire the AI race with China from silicon to software.
In this briefing, we’ll chart:
The Policy Shock: What the new U.S. AI playbook means for agencies, startups, and capital allocators.
The Closed-Box Trap: How API-only AI slows auditability, sovereignty, and real-world reliability.
The Velocity Equation: Why openness compounds experimentation, broadens participation, and strengthens security.
Buckle up as we cut through the noise, giving researchers, operators, and policymakers a clear view of where openness truly moves the needle, and where the hard engineering still lives.