AI Startup Thinking Machines Lab Releases First Open-Weight Model, Inkling

Thinking Machines Lab, the AI startup founded by OpenAI’s former chief technology officer, has formally entered the foundation-model market. Open-source and open-weight models have become a key battleground as U.S.-China technology tensions intensify. The company’s move demonstrates its ability to compete with technology giants and is seen by the market as a key counterweight to the continued global expansion of Chinese open-weight AI models.

Thinking Machines Lab unveiled Inkling, its first open-weight AI model, on July 16, 2026. Built on a mixture-of-experts architecture, the model supports a context window of up to 1 million tokens. Inkling is now available for free download and fine-tuning. The development could challenge the dominance of established technology giants and formally marks the team’s entry into the foundation-model market.