After years of being labeled “ClosedAI,” OpenAI has officially gone open-source — and not just symbolically. It released two cutting-edge open-weight models: gpt-oss-120b and gpt-oss-20b. Both models are free under the permissive Apache 2.0 license and are built for real-world, on-device deployment.
The 120B model is a sparse Mixture-of-Experts model that performs on par with OpenAI’s o4-mini, while the 20B model is optimized for laptops and consumer-grade hardware. With support for chain-of-thought reasoning, browsing, Python execution, and local tool use, these models are now setting the standard for open-source AI performance.
Within minutes of launch, the models surged to the top of the Hugging Face trending charts, causing download traffic so intense that even Hugging Face’s servers buckled under the pressure.
What makes this move even more significant is its broader context — a direct response to China’s dominance in open-source AI with models like Qwen, Kimi, and DeepSeek. With gpt-oss, OpenAI isn’t just contributing to open-source — it’s reasserting US leadership in global AI development, backed by government vendor approvals and integration across platforms like Azure, Vercel, Ollama, and LM Studio.
This isn’t just about AI models. It’s about democratized infrastructure, data sovereignty, and developer empowerment — especially for countries like India, where access to fine-tunable, on-device AI unlocks massive innovation potential.
Watch this space. AIM TV is going all in — with demos, deep dives, and hands-on guides to help you deploy, adapt, and build with gpt-oss.
OpenAI didn’t just release models. It redefined what it means to be open.
Think Open. Think AI. Think OpenAI. Think AIM.
source