Foundation Models & Reasoning
Core model architectures, training methods, chain-of-thought reasoning, and test-time compute scaling. The backbone of modern AI capabilities.
Key Benchmarks
Recent Papers
NanoFLUX: Distillation-Driven Compression of Large Text-to-Image Generation Models for Mobile Devices
Ruchika Chavhan, Malcolm Chadwick, Alberto Gil Couto Pimentel Ramos +3 more
Shared LoRA Subspaces for almost Strict Continual Learning
Prakhar Kaushik, Ankit Vaidya, Shravan Chaudhari +2 more
EuroLLM-22B: Technical Report
Miguel Moura Ramos, Duarte M. Alves, Hippolyte Gisserot-Boukhlef +15 more
Reinforcement World Model Learning for LLM-based Agents
Xiao Yu, Baolin Peng, Ruize Xu +6 more
OdysseyArena: Benchmarking Large Language Models For Long-Horizon, Active and Inductive Interactions
Fangzhi Xu, Hang Yan, Qiushi Sun +16 more
Diamond Maps: Efficient Reward Alignment via Stochastic Flow Maps
Peter Holderrieth, Douglas Chen, Luca Eyring +7 more
DSB: Dynamic Sliding Block Scheduling for Diffusion LLMs
Lizhuo Luo, Shenggui Li, Yonggang Wen +1 more
Stop Rewarding Hallucinated Steps: Faithfulness-Aware Step-Level Reinforcement Learning for Small Reasoning Models
Shuo Nie, Hexuan Deng, Chao Wang +6 more
KV-CoRE: Benchmarking Data-Dependent Low-Rank Compressibility of KV-Caches in LLMs
Jian Chen, Zhuoran Wang, Jiayu Qin +6 more
RRAttention: Dynamic Block Sparse Attention via Per-Head Round-Robin Shifts for Long-Context Inference
Siran Liu, Guoxia Wang, Sa Wang +7 more
Recent Milestones
Armenia AI hub scales to 50,000 Nvidia GPUs
US‑based AI cloud firm Firebird announced on February 10 that it secured US export approvals to deliver an additional 41,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs to Armenia as part of Phase 2 of its AI supercomputing project. The expansion brings the total cluster to 50,000 GPUs and roughly US$4 billion in planned investment, positioning Armenia among the world’s largest AI GPU hubs.
OpenAI revives ChatGPT growth, preps new model
BusinessToday reports that an internal Slack memo shows ChatGPT returned to more than 10% month‑on‑month growth after OpenAI declared a “code red” in December 2025. The same memo, cited by CNBC and summarized on February 10, says OpenAI plans to ship an updated chat model between February 9 and 15, alongside 50% growth in its Codex coding product.
Claude Opus 4.6 Targets Serious Knowledge Work
Italian data outlet InfoData describes Anthropic’s new flagship model Claude Opus 4.6 as optimized for deep, continuous "knowledge work" rather than casual conversation. The article highlights long‑context reasoning, enterprise‑oriented use cases and Anthropic’s strategy to position Claude as a reliable professional tool.([infodata.ilsole24ore.com](https://www.infodata.ilsole24ore.com/2026/02/09/tutto-quello-che-ce-da-sapere-di-claude-opus-4-6-meno-chatbot-da-conversazione-piu-intelligenza-artificiale-pensata-per-lavorare/))
Alphabet taps $20B+ bonds, century debt for AI
Alphabet raised US$20 billion on February 9, 2026 in its largest ever US dollar bond sale, upsizing the deal from an initial US$15 billion on orders exceeding US$100 billion. Follow‑on coverage on February 10 details plans for additional sterling and Swiss franc bonds, including a rare 100‑year “century bond”, to help finance up to US$185 billion in 2026 capex heavily focused on AI data centers.
Alibaba’s Qwen Hits 1B Downloads, Wins Top Prize
China’s Zhejiang provincial government awarded its 2024 Science and Technology Progress First Prize to the project “Key technologies and large-scale applications of the Qwen open-source large model” on February 9, 2026. Coverage notes that Alibaba’s Qwen family has released more than 400 open-source models, with over one billion cumulative downloads and over 1 million enterprise users worldwide.
India backs Sarvam as flagship sovereign LLM
On February 8, 2026, India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the country’s sovereign AI model strategy is “delivering results,” highlighting an advanced foundational model from startup Sarvam AI. The minister noted that Sarvam was selected from 67 proposals to build India’s first sovereign LLM under the Rs 10,300 crore India AI Mission and praised its Indic text, speech and OCR models.
Cerebras Raises $1B to Challenge Nvidia
AI chipmaker Cerebras Systems closed a $1 billion Series H round at a $23 billion valuation on February 4, 2026, led by Tiger Global with AMD, Benchmark, Fidelity and others participating. On February 7, MLQ.ai reported that Benchmark has layered at least $225 million into the round via two “Benchmark Infrastructure” vehicles, ahead of Cerebras’ planned Q2 2026 IPO and a $10 billion compute deal with OpenAI.([mlq.ai](https://mlq.ai/news/benchmark-capital-commits-225m-to-cerebras-in-ai-chip-funding-boost/))
Nvidia eyes $20B stake in OpenAI mega‑raise
Nvidia is close to investing about $20 billion in OpenAI as part of the ChatGPT maker's latest funding round, Reuters reported on February 4, 2026. The deal, still not final, would be Nvidia's largest-ever single investment and part of an OpenAI raise that could reach $100 billion.
Singapore Pours S$1B into Public AI Push
Singapore’s digital minister Josephine Teo has announced more than S$1 billion in funding for public AI research and talent development between 2025 and 2030. The programme will back new AI research centres, scholarships and high‑performance compute infrastructure, with the goal of tripling the domestic AI expert workforce to 15,000.([laregione.ch](https://www.laregione.ch/estero/estero/1899409/singapore-stanzia-oltre-un-miliardo-per-l-intelligenza-artificiale-tra-il-2025-e-il-2030))
Singapore commits S$1B to public AI research
Singapore announced on Jan. 24, 2026 it will invest more than S$1 billion (~$780 million) in public AI research through 2030. The plan funds new AI research centres, responsible and resource‑efficient AI, and talent pipelines from schools to universities.
LeCun’s AMI Labs Launches World-Model Push
Yann LeCun’s new startup AMI Labs officially launched on January 24, 2026, positioning itself as a Paris-headquartered lab building real-world ‘world model’ AI systems. Multiple outlets report the company is in talks with VCs to raise funding at a valuation of around $3.5 billion, with Meta seen as a likely first customer. ([techbuzz.ai](https://www.techbuzz.ai/articles/yann-lecun-s-ami-labs-emerges-with-world-model-ai-play))
Socher’s Recursive targets $4B frontier lab
Bloomberg reports that AI researcher Richard Socher is raising "hundreds of millions" of dollars for a new startup, Recursive, at a prospective valuation of about $4 billion, according to sources on January 23, 2026. GV (Google Ventures) and Greycroft are said to be in talks to lead the round, which has not yet closed.([bloomberg.com](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-23/ai-startup-recursive-in-funding-talks-at-4-billion-valuation))
Anthropic pursues $10B+ round, $9B+ revenue pace
Bloomberg reporting on January 21, 2026 said Anthropic is lining up over $10 billion in new funding led by Coatue and Singapore’s GIC, potentially pushing total recent commitments above $20 billion alongside prior Nvidia and Microsoft deals. The company’s annualized revenue run rate reportedly exceeded $9 billion at the end of 2025, more than doubling since July.
Kona 1.0: energy-based reasoning AI debuts
Logical Intelligence announced Kona 1.0, an energy-based reasoning AI model that will enter pilot programs with industrial partners later this quarter. The company also added Yann LeCun as founding chair of its Technical Research Board and Patrick Hillmann as Chief Strategy Officer on January 21, 2026.
Meta’s SI Lab ships first frontier models
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth said on January 21, 2026 that the company’s new Superintelligence Labs has delivered its first high-profile AI models for internal use. The lab, formed less than six months ago, is developing text and multimodal models codenamed “Avocado” and “Mango.”
Humans& raises $480M to build frontier AI lab
Humans&, a three‑month‑old AI lab founded by veterans of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and xAI, closed a $480 million seed round at a $4.48 billion valuation on January 20, 2026. The round was led by SV Angel and co‑founder Georges Harik, with participation from Nvidia and Alphabet’s GV, to fund long‑horizon, multi‑agent reasoning models aimed at collaborative work. ([siliconangle.com](https://siliconangle.com/2026/01/20/newly-launched-ai-startup-humans-raises-480m-round-backed-nvidia-gv/))
Anthropic Targets $25B Round at $350B Value
Anthropic is reportedly assembling a $25 billion funding round that would value the Claude developer at about $350 billion, with Sequoia Capital joining existing backers like Microsoft and Nvidia. Analytics India Magazine, citing the Financial Times, reported on January 19, 2026 that Singapore’s GIC and Coatue will also invest, as Anthropic prepares for a potential IPO. ([analyticsindiamag.com](https://analyticsindiamag.com/ai-news-updates/sequoia-breaks-ranks-to-back-anthropic-in-25-bn-mega-round-report/))
OpenAI raids $2B rival for founding talent
On January 18, 2026, The Indian Express reported that OpenAI has rehired three founding members of rival startup Thinking Machines Lab, including former CTO Barret Zoph, with additional researchers also leaving the young lab. The moves come just six months after Thinking Machines raised a record $2 billion seed round and follow reports of internal turmoil and unclear product strategy.
KAIST pushes CERN‑style bloc for frontier AI
On January 18, 2026, KAIST and international partners released a policy report arguing that mid‑sized 'AI bridge power' nations such as South Korea, Canada, the UK, Germany and Singapore should form a CERN‑like alliance to pool compute, data and talent for frontier AI. Korean media note the report’s estimate that about 90% of global AI compute capacity is now concentrated in the US (75%) and China (15%), leaving others dangerously dependent on a few superpowers and Big Tech firms.
Zhejiang locks AI as trillion‑yuan growth pillar
On January 18, 2026, China News Service reported that Zhejiang’s provincial government work report mentions artificial intelligence more than 15 times and makes building an 'AI innovation development highland' a top priority for the new Five‑Year Plan. The province says its core AI industry generated about 680 billion yuan in revenue in 2025, backed by players like Alibaba Cloud, DeepSeek and ZhiJiang Lab, and outlines new investments in compute, data, model infrastructure and application testbeds.