Cathy Wood: Open AI code is not a threat, but a catalyst for growth for OpenAI and Anthropic.
Contrary to the widespread fear that publishing open AI models will undermine the business of leading labs, ARK Invest CEO Cathie Wood sees a paradoxical opportunity for the industry's giants to grow richer. Her argumentation flips traditional investment analysis logic on its head.
This concerns models with open weights, where the developer publishes all parameters, allowing anyone to download and run them on their own hardware without licensing fees. Wood argues that the main danger of such solutions lies not in democratizing access to AI, but in the escalation of cyber threats. The more powerful open models from Meta, Mistral, or DeepSeek become, the wider the attack surface for malicious actors.
Security logic as a demand driver
This logic, according to Wood, is pushing the corporate sector to more actively purchase the most advanced paid AI solutions for protection. Research from the UK AI Safety Institute confirms that open models have already come close to commercial developments in terms of cyberattack capabilities, lagging by only 4–7 months. In the ARK AI primetime report, this growth in AI infrastructure spending is called the trend of the decade.
Cathie Wood is not just theorizing—ARK Invest holds direct investments in all three key players: OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceXAI. She calls them the main beneficiaries of the "open-source revolution," not its victims. Notably, Anthropic has already filed an S-1 application for a listing with a valuation of around $1 trillion, and OpenAI could go public as early as September 2026.
"Paradoxically, open models are becoming the main reason why OpenAI, Anthropic, and, in the future, SpaceXAI will capture the lion's share of revenue in the AI sector," Wood stated.
My take on the situation
Wood's argumentation looks convincing but requires caution. On one hand, security is indeed becoming a premium commodity in the era of ubiquitous AI. On the other, the market could become oversaturated if open models reach parity with closed ones faster than expected. Nevertheless, for investors, this is a signal: a monopoly on protection may prove more valuable than a monopoly on technology.