OpenAI delayed its promised open-weights model since GPT-2, leaving the Middle Kingdom clearly in the lead

Comment OpenAI was supposed to make good on its name and release its first open-weights model since GPT-2 this week.

Unfortunately, what could have been the US's first half-decent open model of the year has been held up by a safety review, according to CEO Sam Altman. "While we trust the community will build great things with this model, once weights are out, they can't be pulled back. This is new for us, and we want to get it right," he wrote in a post on X.

The delay leaves the US in a rather awkward spot. Despite hundreds of billions of investment in GPUs, the best open model America has managed so far this year is Meta's Llama 4, which enjoyed a less than stellar reception and was marred with controversy. Just this week, it was reported that Meta had apparently taken its two-trillion-parameter Behemoth out ...