Thinking Machines releases Inkling 2 Small with open weights pending
The gist
Thinking Machines' Inkling 2 Small scored 31 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, with weights due next week.
Its low cost per task makes the pending open release worth watching.
How it unfolded
- Nov 5, 2026Thinking Machines introduced Inkling 2 Small, a Mixture-of-Experts model with 594B total parameters and 17B active, supporting image inputs and variable effort. It scored 31 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index and was initially available through Tinker with closed weights.
- Nov 6, 2026OrcaRouter published a comparison putting Inkling 2 Small (index 31, $1.18 per Intelligence Index task) against Qwen3.8-Max (index 34, $10.02 per task), an 8.5x cost difference.
- Nov 6, 2026Unite.AI reported the launch with open weights pending, noting safety evaluations covered CBRN risks, cyber risks, refusal-suppressed variants, agentic capability, strategic deception and sabotage potential.
Key terms
- open weights
- Numerical values in a neural network that determine how strongly inputs contribute to its calculations.
- Mixture-of-Experts
- A machine learning technique using multiple expert networks to divide a problem space into regions.
- CBRN
- Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear hazards, and the protective measures taken against them.
Source: Wikipedia