Distillation Under TRUST: The Case for a U.S.-India Trusted AI Model Distillation and Diffusion Corridor
The report argues that a growing number of U.S. and Indian companies are deploying Chinese open-weight models, and that Washington is weighing punitive measures against Chinese labs. It proposes establishing a U.S.-India corridor under the TRUST initiative to legally distill open-weight models from frontier U.S. models, while acknowledging challenges such as intellectual property and export controls.
Why it matters: This matters for U.S.-China technology competition, as the report contends that punitive measures will not eliminate demand for capable, cheap open-weight models or prevent Chinese models' adoption across the Global South.