Sam Altman Announces OpenAI's New Open Weight AI Model

Sam Altman has announced that OpenAI plans to launch an open weight artificial intelligence model in the near future. In a post on X, he expressed excitement about the upcoming release of a powerful new language model that will include reasoning capabilities.

Altman mentioned that the company has been considering this release for quite some time and now it feels like the right moment to do so. This decision comes after the impressive success of the R1 model developed by the Chinese company DeepSeek, along with the rising popularity of Meta's Llama models.

OpenAI aims to demonstrate that it can train this new model at a lower cost, especially since DeepSeek reportedly developed its model for a fraction of the expense typically associated with large AI models.

Currently, OpenAI provides its AI through various channels, including a chatbot and cloud services. In contrast, models like R1 and Llama can be downloaded for free, allowing users to make modifications. The term "weights" refers to the numeric values inside a neural network, set during its training. Open weight models are typically more economical to operate and can be customized for sensitive applications, such as managing private data.

Steven Heidel, a technical team member at OpenAI, shared Altman's announcement and added that the new model will be runnable on individual hardware.

Additionally, OpenAI has launched a webpage calling for developers to sign up for early access to the upcoming model. Altman disclosed that the company will host events for developers featuring early prototypes of this new model in the coming weeks.

Meta was the first major AI company to adopt a more open development strategy with the release of the original Llama model in July 2023. The number of available open weight AI models has increased significantly. However, some researchers have pointed out that Llama, along with certain other models, lacks transparency because details about the training data remain undisclosed. Furthermore, Meta has imposed a licensing agreement that restricts other companies from profiting from applications developed using Llama.

AI, OpenAI, Technology