Weights

The numbers inside an AI model that store what it learned in training. A large model holds billions of them, and their number is roughly what gets quoted as the model's size. Training adjusts them bit by bit until the model's output matches its training data closely enough. When the model answers, it runs the input through calculations that use these numbers. So the weights are needed to run the model. Published weights let anyone with enough hardware use the model. Otherwise the owner decides who does.