GoKawiilThinking Machines unveils Inkling 2 Small, plans open weights release next week
Thinking Machines Lab, founded by former OpenAI CTO Mira Murati, has launched Inkling 2 Small, a 594-billion-parameter model that accepts images but only outputs text. Third-party evaluator Artificial Analysis gave it a score of 31 on its Intelligence Index, putting it on par with Gemini 3.8 Flash, though the company says it will not release the model's weights publicly until next week.
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The release comes as Chinese labs like DeepSeek and Moonshot have dominated open-weight AI rankings, so a strong showing from a Western startup could signal a shift in that balance. Thinking Machines' emphasis on coding and agent-loop usability suggests the company is targeting developers building autonomous AI tools, though how the model performs once weights are public remains to be seen.
- Thinking Machines released Inkling 2 Small, scoring 31 on Artificial Analysis's Intelligence Index.
- The model has 594 billion parameters, accepts images, and outputs text only.
- Open weights are expected next week, following a similar move by French lab Mistral with Le Chonk.
Source: zdnet.com — Radhika Rajkumar, 2026-11-06
Published there as: “Thinking Machines’ new model takes the lead in western open-weight AI”
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