Nvidia, Microsoft, others launch AI alliance after unprecedented OpenAI cyberattack

NVIDIA, Microsoft, SpaceX and other major technology and cybersecurity companies have joined forces to launch the Open Secure AI Alliance, a new initiative focused on developing open tools to defend software, AI agents and critical infrastructure against cyber threats. The alliance brings together prominent names across cloud computing, cybersecurity, enterprise software, open-source foundations and AI research. Its inaugural partners include NVIDIA, Adobe, Cadence, Capital One, Cisco, Cloudera, Cloudflare, Cognition, CrowdStrike, Databricks, Dell Technologies, DoorDash, Elastic, HPE, Hugging Face, IBM, LangChain, the Linux Foundation, Microsoft, NAVER, NetApp, Nous Research, OpenClaw, Palantir, Palo Alto Networks, Red Hat, Reflection AI, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Siemens, SK Telecom, Snowflake, SpaceXAI, Synopsys, Thinking Machines Lab and TrendAI. In a press announcement, NVIDIA said the alliance will work to develop and share open technologies, techniques and tools to safeguard software and agents as AI becomes more widely deployed. The company is contributing open models, model weights, data and agent-harness research to the initiative. Google, OpenAI and Anthropic are notably absent from the list of inaugural partners. OpenAI’s absence is particularly notable given the alliance’s focus on open defensive tools and the recent security incident at Hugging Face, where the company said it turned to an open-weight model after closed AI tools were unable to support parts of its forensic analysis. Open models for cyber defense The alliance argues that cybersecurity is one of the areas where open models can provide a significant advantage. Unlike closed systems, open models and tools can be inspected, adapted, and deployed on an organization’s own infrastructure, giving defenders greater control over sensitive data and security operations. The group said the recent Hugging Face incident demonstrated why defenders need access to advanced open systems. According to the announcement, Hugging Face used an open-weight GLM 5.2 model on its own infrastructure to analyze more than 17,000 actions and contain the intrusion after closed AI tools could not distinguish between attackers and defenders. “That incident showed a practical truth: when defenders cannot inspect, adapt and run advanced AI on their own infrastructure, their ability to respond is constrained at exactly the moment speed matters most.” The alliance said companies and governments need open defensive tools that can operate across a multi-vendor ecosystem, reducing dependence on individual providers and avoiding potential single points of failure. It also acknowledged that open models can be misused, including in cyberattacks or attempts to remove safeguards. However, the group argued that these risks exist in both open and closed systems. “The right response is not to deny defenders access to capable open systems. It is to pair openness with strong safeguards, clear rules against malicious misuse, rigorous evaluation and rapid remediation.” Building an open defense stack The alliance is focusing on the broader systems that support AI agents, rather than just the models themselves. It said effective security requires controls covering identity, permissions, agent harnesses, guardrails, logging and evaluation. NVIDIA’s new open-source NVIDIA Labs Object-Oriented Agent (NOOA) project is being contributed to the initiative. The framework is designed to help agent harnesses work with models in ways that make agent behavior easier to test, trace, audit, and govern. Other members are contributing technologies across the security stack. HPE is contributing to SPIFFE/SPIRE, which provides zero-trust identity standards for verifying agents and services. Hugging Face has offered its Safetensors format for storing model weights to the PyTorch Foundation, while IBM and Red Hat are working on digitally signed patches for the open-source software supply chain. Microsoft is contributing its MDASH multi-model agentic scanning harness, which uses specialized agents to discover, debate and validate exploitable vulnerabilities. SpaceXAI has also open-sourced the Grok Build terminal-based coding agent and said it plans to open-source the weights of the Grok model line. The alliance is calling on policymakers to treat open models, agent harnesses and security tooling as defensive assets. It warned that blanket restrictions on open frontier systems could weaken cyber defenses and increase dependence on a small number of closed providers. The Open Secure AI Alliance said companies and governments should invest in shared infrastructure such as datasets, evaluation frameworks, attack simulators and red-teaming tools to strengthen security as AI agents become more widely deployed. Recommended ArticlesGet the latest in engineering, tech, space & science - delivered daily to your inbox.With over a decade-long career in journalism, Neetika Walter has worked with The Economic Times, ANI, and Hindustan Times, covering politics, business, technology, and the clean energy sector. Passionate about contemporary culture, books, poetry, and storytelling, she brings depth and insight to her writing. When she isn’t chasing stories, she’s likely lost in a book or enjoying the company of her dogs.