TECH NEWS

Thinking Machines’ new model takes the lead in western open-weight AI

https://www.zdnet.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/redonblueGettyImages-2270299267.jpg

ZDNET’s key takeaways

  • Thinking Machines released a competitive new open model, Inkling 2 Small.
  • Most competitive open models come out of China.
  • The release follows French lab Mistral’s Le Chonk open model, which excels at coding.

Thinking Machines Lab, a small AI startup from ex-OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has released its latest model, Inkling 2 Small — and according to third-party tester Artificial Analysis, it’s set to give Chinese models a run for their lead. It’s technically proprietary until now, but Thinking Machines said it will release its weights next week.

Also: Open weights vs. closed: An AI civil war’s afoot

Chinese companies have led the pack on open models over the last few years. Models from DeepSeek and Moonshot regularly top leaderboards and rival the capabilities of much more expensive, closed models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

More from ZDNET

What Inkling 2 Small does

Thinking Machines’ latest model has...

Copyright of this story solely belongs to www.zdnet.com. To see the full text click HERE

Read more