Beijing time, July 9 – OpenClaw, the globally popular open‑source personal AI project, announced that its OpenClaw Foundation, registered as a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has officially begun operations.
Co‑founders Peter Steinberger and Dave Morin jointly made the announcement.
What drew particular attention was that Tencent, the Chinese internet giant, was listed among the first partners alongside global tech leaders such as OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Microsoft, signaling a new landscape where Chinese and American tech giants are coming together in the open‑source AI ecosystem.
Independent and neutral, aiming to be the “Switzerland of AI”
The OpenClaw Foundation clearly positions itself as a neutral platform in the AI field – much like the Linux Foundation guards open‑source operating systems, it aims to provide long‑term, stable, neutral support for the personal AI ecosystem.
The Foundation emphasized that the project will continue to be licensed under the MIT License, remain fully open‑source, and stay free from control by any single commercial entity. All models and labs can access the technology and jointly set industry standards for the agent era.
Founder Steinberger joined OpenAI earlier this year, but he made it clear: “OpenAI hired me, not OpenClaw. The Foundation is independent, and the partners are sponsors, not owners.” OpenAI has also committed to supporting OpenClaw as an independent, open project.
（OpenClaw founder Steinberger）
Giants gather, each with distinct contributions
The first batch of partners is strong, with clear roles:
- OpenAI provides inference support and is a major donor;
- NVIDIA launched NemoClaw, enabling local private deployment. NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said at GTC that “every company in the world needs an OpenClaw strategy”;
- Microsoft released Microsoft Scout, an enterprise‑grade agent product based on OpenClaw technology, with CEO Satya Nadella calling it the first in the “enterprise agent” product line;
- Tencent focuses on security, deployment, and infrastructure support. Earlier, in March, Tencent Cloud and Tencent AI had already become community sponsors; now upgrading to Foundation partners signals significantly deepened cooperation.
In addition, the University of Michigan, GitHub, Cloudflare, Vercel, and others are also among the first partners. The University of Michigan is the largest donor and has established an Institute for Agentic Computing.
From a “weekend project” to a global movement, the ecosystem continues to grow
Six months ago, OpenClaw was just a “weekend project” that Steinberger tinkered with at his home in Austria. Today, it has grown to add 4.5 million users per week and is the fastest‑growing code repository in GitHub’s history.
Currently, over 30 organizations – including Atlassian, Vercel, and Cloudflare – have joined the OpenClaw partnership network. Ecosystem tools such as ClawHub, ClawSweeper, and others are constantly improving. The global community event ClawCon has been held 34 times across 16 countries, with nearly 30,000 participants.
Open‑source personal AI enters a new phase of institutionalized governance
OpenClaw’s transition from a personal open‑source project to an independent foundation marks a shift from community‑driven momentum to institutional governance for personal AI agents.
Major model players are vying to see open‑source agent frameworks as the next application gateway, while academic institutions view them as long‑term infrastructure. The Foundation’s establishment provides a more solid institutional safeguard for the future of personal AI, and the deep involvement of Chinese companies like Tencent also underscores the irreversible trend of global collaboration in open‑source AI.
As the Foundation stated in its official blog: “Linux, Apache, and Mozilla have endured because a neutral steward stood behind them. That is the role we are stepping into.”