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[SITUATION] · [ACTIVE] · [TECHNOLOGY]

2 clusters · 12 sources · 3 days · First seen · Last updated

Thinking Machines Lab Inkling 2 Small release

Overview

Thinking Machines Lab, an AI startup founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has released Inkling 2 Small, its second-generation model. The model utilizes a Mixture-of-Experts architecture with 594 billion total parameters, of which 17 billion are active during computation. It is designed for agentic coding, vision, and complex reasoning tasks, supporting both text and image inputs while producing text-only output.

Benchmark firm Artificial Analysis indicates the model is competitive with existing technologies, including Google’s Gemini 3.8 Flash and high-performing Chinese models like DeepSeek. The company intends to release the model weights under an Apache 2.0 license following external safety testing, a move that could position it as a leading open-weight model developed outside of China.

In related business developments, the company is reportedly negotiating a $5 billion funding round led by Accel. This potential raise would value the startup at approximately $40 billion pre-money, up from a previous $12 billion seed valuation.

Entities

OpenAI · Mira Murati · Thinking Machines Lab · Google · DeepSeek

Timeline

  1. [TECHNOLOGY] 3 sources
    Thinking Machines releases Inkling 2 Small AI model

    Thinking Machines Lab has launched Inkling 2 Small, a 594-billion-parameter AI model designed to compete with high-performing Chinese models through upcoming open-weight availability.

  2. [TECHNOLOGY] 9 sources
    Thinking Machines Lab launches Inkling 2 Small AI model

    Thinking Machines Lab has launched Inkling 2 Small, an advanced AI model featuring a Mixture-of-Experts architecture. The startup is also reportedly seeking $5 billion in new funding.

Sources

cryptobriefing.com · gigazine.net · japan.zdnet.com · news18.com · newsable.asianetnews.com · ontheissuesmagazine.com · opticalnewsdaily.com · prodiris.fr · siliconangle.com · tech-noisy.com · thebridge.jp · trendingtopics.at