Nathan Lambert: new US open-weight release cuts gap with Chinese models by half
natolambert · x · 2026-10-16
HuggingFace researcher Nathan Lambert celebrates US open-weight models becoming relevant again: until now, US open models had trailed Chinese ones since as early as February 2026. The latest release — the best American open-weight model (Muse Spark Open, AAII 39, rank 8 per the Artificial Analysis chart) — cuts the gap by at least half in time (3 months), he says, though "still more work to do."
The chart shows Chinese open models dominating the top: MiMo-V2.6-Pro (46), GLM-5.3 (45), Kimi K3 (44), with over a dozen Chinese releases scoring above the top US open-weight model.
Related event: US Open-Weight Models Regain Competitive Ground, Halving Gap with China(2 posts)→
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