The biggest question facing US AI leadership is whether we will treat AI models as infrastructure. Infrastructure (like the internet, electricity, transportation networks) is best built by lots of organizations and countries working together - in cooperation and in competition. The US knows how to build great infrastructure. Every time we have done it, we have opened new horizons of possibility. I believe it is inevitable that we will do the same with AI, and open models will be at the heart of this new infrastructure. Open models are enabling companies and institutions from brand-new startups to titans of every industry to build their own future, to capitalize on their perspective and ideas to better serve customers and solve problems. Open models make sovereignty possible. Policymakers that want to keep America AI at the forefront of this opportunity will understand how necessary open models are: they are now the critical infrastructure of the AI age.