Meta is making its latest move in the AI race, but this time the company is looking beyond performance alone. The tech giant released a new artificial intelligence model Monday as CEO Mark Zuckerberg urged Washington to help American open-source developers compete with China, the New York Post reported.
Muse Glimmer AI is now available for developers to download and run on their own hardware. Meta also said it plans to open the weights for Muse Spark 1.2 in the coming weeks. The company described that model as one of the world’s leading foundation models.
The releases signal Meta’s return to open-source AI after Zuckerberg previously said the company would “resume releasing some open source models soon.” His latest push also comes as Chinese open-weight models gain ground among US businesses.
It sounds strange at first, but he’s got a point
Zuckerberg argued that US AI companies face restrictions that can put them at a disadvantage against foreign competitors. In a manifesto titled “The Future is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future,” he called for policies that would help American open-source models become global leaders.
He wrote that “the US and its allies lead the open source AI ecosystem.” Zuckerberg said open-source AI could account for a large share of global AI use. He also warned that foreign laboratories currently have advantages because American companies face more restrictions on training data. This push comes as Zuckerberg faces pressure on other fronts too, with Meta employees recently calling his bluff over leaks.
The challenge is becoming harder to ignore. Chinese companies including DeepSeek, Alibaba and Z.ai have developed open-weight models that are gaining attention for competitive performance and lower costs. Some US technology companies have adopted them because of their flexibility and cheaper computing requirements. We’ve already seen how messy those tests can get when Meta’s AI model was caught hacking another company during a security evaluation.
Washington has responded with growing scrutiny. DeepSeek is barred from US intelligence-community systems, while lawmakers have proposed wider restrictions on Chinese AI models. Officials are also considering further limits on Chinese open-weight technology.
Meta’s latest releases therefore arrive at a pivotal moment. The company is reopening its open-source strategy while Zuckerberg presses US policymakers to reduce barriers for American developers.
Published: Aug 10, 2026 07:45 pm