OpenAI launches GPT‑5.6 with limited preview amid U.S. government restrictions

OpenAI has begun a limited preview of its GPT‑5.6 family, offering three tiered models – Sol (the flagship), Terra (balanced) and Luna (fast, low‑cost). Pricing is set at $5 input/$30 output per million tokens for Sol, $2.50/$15 for Terra and $1/$6 for Luna. Access is restricted to roughly twenty trusted partners that have been vetted by the U.S. government.

The rollout follows a direct request from the Trump administration, conveyed through the Office of the National Cyber Director and the Office of Science and Technology Policy, to stagger public release because of national‑security concerns. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the company does not believe “this kind of government access process should become the long‑term default.”

Several outlets reported that the delay and the tightly‑controlled preview are part of a broader U.S. push to obtain early access to frontier AI models. The same governmental pressure previously led to temporary bans on Anthropic’s Mythos 5 and Fable 5 models. OpenAI emphasizes that the new Sol model includes the most robust safety stack to date, with layered safeguards against illicit cyber‑assistance and real‑time misuse classifiers.