OpenAI’s weight models arrive in the US Army

When OpenAI was unveiled that it The first open weight models In recent years this August, it wasn’t just tech companies that were paying attention. The release also excited US military and defense contractors, who saw an opportunity to use it in highly secure operations.

Preliminary results show that OpenAI tools lag behind competitors in required capabilities, some military vendors told WIRED. But they’re still happy that models from a major industry leader are finally an option for them.

Lilt, an AI translation company, contracts with the US military to analyze foreign intelligence. Because the company’s software handles sensitive information, it must be installed on government servers and work offline, a practice known as air-gapping. Lilt has previously developed or used its own AI models Open source Options like Mita Llama and Google Gemma. But OpenAI tools were off the table because they were closed source and could only be accessed online.

The new open-weight models developed by ChatGPT, gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b, change that. both of them Can be run locallyWhich means that users are free to install it on their own devices without the need for a cloud connection. By accessing model weights—key parameters that determine how they react to different prompts—users can customize them for specific purposes.

OpenAI’s return to the open source market could ultimately increase competition and lead to better-performing systems for militaries, healthcare companies, and other companies that work with sensitive data. Recently McKinsey poll Of the nearly 700 business leaders, more than 50 percent said their organizations use open source AI technologies. Models have different strengths depending on how they are trained, and organizations often use several of them together, including open-weighted ones, to ensure reliability across a wide range of situations.

Doug Mattei, the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer at the so-called War Department, which is the name the Trump administration uses for the Defense Department, tells WIRED that the Pentagon plans to integrate generative AI into… Battlefield systems and Back office jobs Like auditing. Some of these applications will require models that are not tied to the cloud, he says. “Our capabilities must be adaptable and flexible,” says Mattei.

OpenAI did not respond to requests for comment about how its open source models are used in the defense industry. Last year, the company overturned a broad ban on the use of its technology in military and warfare applications, a move that drew criticism from activists concerned about the harm caused by artificial intelligence.

For OpenAI, offering a free and open model can have many benefits. Ease of access can create a larger community of experts in its techniques. Because users do not have to register as official clients, they may be able to operate anonymously, which could prevent OpenAI from facing criticism over potentially controversial clients, such as the military, for example.