Thinking Machines’ First AI Model, California Loses $3.2B to Texas, TSMC Adds $100B | Diet TBPN

**John Coogan** (0:01)
We have a very special show for you today because we have Tyler Cosgrove guest hosting. He's here in the chair, and I know I'm gonna make mistakes today because I always throw it over to Jordi. I gotta remember this, Tyler, it reminds me of this video from Warren Buffett. We gotta play it to show what I'm going through emotionally today without Jordi in the TBPN Ultradome. Let's pull up this video of Warren Buffett throughout the years at the Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Meetings.
Warren Buffett always goes to Charlie after he gives his comment, he gives his speech and then he kicks it over to Charlie. Through the years.

**Tyler Cosgrove** (0:41)
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

**John Coogan** (0:43)
Tearjerker.

**Jordi Hays** (0:44)
Yeah, makes me wanna cry.

**John Coogan** (0:45)
It's emotional.

**Tyler Cosgrove** (0:47)
Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

**John Coogan** (0:52)
That's Greg Abel. So if that happens today, I apologize.
But the first big story is of course, Thinking Machines' new model has released. Miramarati's AI startup released its first model in bid to loosen AI giant's grip. We're gonna be talking about open source, closed source, where the frontier is, national geopolitical model moves.

**Jordi Hays** (1:13)
And some people had an idea this was gonna happen. Some inkling.

**John Coogan** (1:16)
Oh, they had an inkling.

**Jordi Hays** (1:17)
That, yeah, that they're gonna release some. Did they?

**John Coogan** (1:18)
I didn't have an inkling that they were going to jump into the open source race.

**Jordi Hays** (1:21)
I think it's actually, I think it makes a lot of sense, given the Tinker API, right? The whole business is, you know, you're doing fine tuning on open source models, it makes a lot of sense that they're gonna have their own, that, you know, you can easily listen to.

**John Coogan** (1:32)
It's sort of like, they are set up as a business to launch an open source model without it degrading any other piece of their business because the Tinker API, that fine tuning that they do, that integration with the customers that they have actually benefits from open source, and then they can go to their clients and say, look, you know, it's the red hat model, at any time you can leave because we are giving you the weights of the model open source. You can do whatever you want with them, but keep working with us because we're helping you a bunch, and we're making money in the process. So Thinking Machines Lab, the first model is an open weights model designed to chip away at the lead of open AI and Anthropics, says the Wall Street Journal. Former open AI technology chief Mir Moradi is betting on more customizable artificial intelligence models to chip away at the lead, the frontier labs such as her former employer hold over the technology. TML, a company led by Moradi, released its first AI model Wednesday and did it with open weights, something that others can modify it with their data. Called Inkling, the model has 975 billion total parameters, making it far smaller than estimates of the most advanced closed source models.

**Jordi Hays** (2:37)
So only, I think, the number is 41 billion of those are actually active at any moment. Yeah. So this is definitely on the bigger side of open source models. But that number, these aren't dense models like what you traditionally think of, of the models like, you know, four years ago.

**John Coogan** (2:51)
Yeah, yeah. Murati told the Journal, we trained it to be a broad, balanced foundation model, strong across many domains, flexible enough to adapt. Inkling is not the strongest overall model available today, open or closed, which is a different frame of reference for many of these model launches.
It's been, everyone's been jockeying for the frontier, even if they're not world class at everything. Usually, when they launch, they say, oh, well, we're best at something or we're best at this, but a different tone, different communication strategy. And I think it's being well received. I think people are having fun with it, the reaction.

**Jordi Hays** (3:29)
Yeah, I mean, I think the main pitch here is that this model is uniquely set up for the Tinker API. It's built to be fine tuned.

**John Coogan** (3:36)
Sure, sure.

**Jordi Hays** (3:36)
That's the whole point.

**John Coogan** (3:37)
Got it. Didi Das says, Thinking Machines just dropped the best open weight AI model outside of China. And obviously, that is a big topic of conversation as business leaders in the United States have some policies and some reticence about using Chinese open source models.
Even if they're not worried about the dystopian, you know, the Manchurian candidate hidden inside the weights, maybe they just want to be aligned with a US based company for a variety of reasons. Inkling beats Nemotron 3 Ultra and benchmarks put it between Kimi K 2.5 and 2.6. Of course, there's also news today that Kimi K 3 will be launching and is another jump forward. But there's back and forth between some AI researchers around what's going on there, how long that strategy will continue. So, Didi says, many were contending to this throne, but Thinky has come out on top. Really solid release and will pair well with Tinker. So, there are some benchmarks that you can go and dig into if that's your thing.