Sources: the White House asked OpenAI and Anthropic not to share new models with UK's AISI until US reviews them; Anthropic appears to have agreed
The White House has asked OpenAI and Anthropic not to share their new artificial intelligence models with the U.K. government's testing agency until …
Context & Ripple Effects
In 2024, OpenAI and Anthropic agreed to give the US AI Safety Institute early access to major models for risk evaluation. The reported request to hold models from the UK’s AISI pending a US review would turn that earlier access arrangement into a priority order between allied testing bodies.
The two labs had also pressed the Trump administration to make government model-review obligations apply to slower-moving competitors. Against that backdrop, the reported UK delay ties the labs’ regulatory strategy more closely to US control over who evaluates frontier models first.
First-order effects
- If the companies comply, the UK AISI’s access to new OpenAI and Anthropic models is delayed until a US review; Anthropic reportedly agreed to the request.
- US reviewers gain the first opportunity to assess the affected models, while OpenAI and Anthropic must manage separate expectations from US and UK safety agencies.
Second-order effects
- The ordering of reviews makes early model access a negotiating point between the White House and allied AI-safety institutions, rather than a shared technical-testing process.
- Competitors seeking comparable government review requirements can point to the labs’ push for broader compliance as the policy debate shifts from safety standards alone to the sequencing of access.
Third-order effects
- If this approach persists, frontier-model evaluation may split into nationally prioritized review channels, with access to models functioning as a lever of AI sovereignty.
- Labs that depend on government relationships face a more state-aligned operating model: safety evaluation becomes intertwined with foreign-policy priorities as well as product-release processes.
The trend: Frontier-model access is becoming an instrument of geopolitical control, as governments seek to determine which national institutions test advanced systems first.