# The Engine Powering Open-Source AI

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-a16z-show-436525/the-engine-powering-open-source-ai
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-a16z-show-436525/the-engine-powering-open-source-ai.md
Podcast: [The a16z Show](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-a16z-show-436525)
Published: 2026-08-06T10:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://a16z.simplecast.com/episodes/how-open-source-ai-became-critical-infrastructure-3yYJbsEz
Audio file: https://mgln.ai/e/1344/afp-848985-injected.calisto.simplecastaudio.com/3f86df7b-51c6-4101-88a2-550dba782de8/episodes/40ae9846-5fcf-49d2-95de-fa631a615ad4/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=3f86df7b-51c6-4101-88a2-550dba782de8&awEpisodeId=40ae9846-5fcf-49d2-95de-fa631a615ad4&feed=JGE3yC0V
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JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-a16z-show-436525/episodes/the-engine-powering-open-source-ai
Duration seconds: 2809

## Resource

Elena Burger and Matt Bornstein are joined by Simon Mo, co-founder and CEO of Inferact, the open-source inference engine powering many of today's most advanced AI applications. Together, they explore how open-source AI evolved from a research project into critical infrastructure, why inference has become one of the most important layers of the AI stack, and what it takes to bring frontier intelligence to developers around the world. The conversation covers vLLM's origins, the rise of open-weight models, why companies increasingly want control over their AI infrastructure, and how open-source inference enables the next generation of AI applications. They also discuss model licensing, the economics of open-weight AI, Kimi K3, distillation, AI infrastructure, and why Simon believes the gap between open and closed models is rapidly disappearing.

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## Transcript

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