/Tech2h ago

Nathan Lambert, AI2 post-training lead, tracks 30 open models and argues that banning open-source AI is technically futile

Story Overview

Nathan Lambert's latest roundup captures a burst of activity across the open-weight space, with roughly 30 models dropped in May and June alone by more than twenty different groups. Far from a single narrative of frontier chasing, the releases reflect product teams, hardware makers, and specialized labs each pursuing their own goals, from GPU ecosystem plays to avoiding reliance on closed APIs.

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#80

Original post

Nathan Lambert@natolambert#80inTech

With everything going on, it gives me hope that there's such a diversity of companies building open models today.

A lot of the story of open models unfolds under the shadow of the biggest frontier models. Lots of unearthed value.

Interconnects@interconnectsai

Artifacts 22: Zyphra, Cohere, Poolside, and others are expanding the breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In this issue, a total of 30 models from may/june you should be aware of, from:

NVIDIA @NVIDIAAI (3) Cohere @Cohere_Labs (2) Zhipu @Zai_org Zyphra @ZyphraAI (3) Poolside @poolsideai Moonshot AI @Kimi_Moonshot StepFun @StepFun_ai Dolphin @dphnAI Google @GoogleAI (3) Nex AGI @NexEcosystem Liquid AI @liquidai MiniMax @MiniMax_AI Swiss AI Initiative @apertusllm JetBrains @jetbrains Microsoft @Microsoft H Company @hcompany_ai Datalab @datalabto (2) Baidu @Baidu_Inc PaddlePaddle @PaddlePaddle Ideogram @ideogram_ai KREA @krea_ai Photoroom @photoroom_ML

Read the issue below.

10:26 AM · Jun 28, 2026 · 5.9K Views

Market Adoption

Diverse actors keep the ecosystem lively

NVIDIA, Cohere, Zyphra, Poolside, Google, and smaller outfits like JetBrains are all shipping models with different licenses, training stacks, and target uses. The pattern points to a long tail of focused releases rather than repeated attempts to match the biggest closed systems.

Policy Risk

Restrictions would narrow who gets to experiment

Lambert notes that blocking open models would hand more control to a handful of large players and cut off outsiders from the tools needed to study or improve safety. History of tech bans suggests the technical side of enforcement would also prove difficult.

Sentiment

Many users are enthusiastic about the 30 new open AI models from NVIDIA, Google, Cohere and others expanding the ecosystem, while negative users find the story less magical due to rising expenses or incomplete charts.

Pos

55.6%

Neg

44.4%

6 comments with sentiment.

Cluster Engagement

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INTERCONNECTS.AIVia

#1778

Posts from X

Most Activity

VIEWS1.6KBOOKMARKS4LIKES27RETWEETS3REPLIES2

Florian Brand@xeophon

Another artifact with many new (and recurring!) friends from @NVIDIAAI, @poolsideai, @cohere, @jetbrains and ofc @Zai_org!

An interesting one, given the recent developments. We argue that banning open models is not only unsafe, but ultimately anti-freedom.

Interconnects@interconnectsai

Artifacts 22: Zyphra, Cohere, Poolside, and others are expanding the breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In this issue, a total of 30 models from may/june you should be aware of, from:

Read the issue below.

2h1.6K274

Toven@pingToven

@interconnectsai @NVIDIAAI @Cohere_Labs @Zai_org @ZyphraAI if you’re on this list and not on openrouter dm me pls and ty

1h1594

Florian Brand@xeophon

And due to our data collection efforts spanning a year at this point, we can make fun graphs like this one!

Turns out that GLM-5.2 is a popular model, but in terms of downloads lags the initial success of something like M2 or Qwen3 MoE.

https://www.interconnects.ai/p/artifacts-22-zyphra-cohere-and-poolside

Florian Brand@xeophon

Another artifact with many new (and recurring!) friends from @NVIDIAAI, @poolsideai, @cohere, @jetbrains and ofc @Zai_org!

An interesting one, given the recent developments. We argue that banning open models is not only unsafe, but ultimately anti-freedom.

2h36150

Lazarz@Laz4rz

@xeophon @NVIDIAAI @poolsideai @cohere @jetbrains @Zai_org Letsss goo bro knows Apertus

58m954

Florian Brand@xeophon

@Laz4rz @NVIDIAAI @poolsideai @cohere @jetbrains @Zai_org bruh we've featured all of their releases, ofc

53m564

Interconnects@interconnectsai

Artifacts 22: Zyphra, Cohere, Poolside, and others are expanding the breadth and diversity of the ecosystem. In this issue, a total of 30 models from may/june you should be aware of, from:

Read the issue below.

2h8.3K209

Interconnects@interconnectsai

@NVIDIAAI @Cohere_Labs @Zai_org @ZyphraAI https://www.interconnects.ai/p/artifacts-22-zyphra-cohere-and-poolside

2h2891

Nathan Lambert@natolambert

@pingToven @interconnectsai @NVIDIAAI @Cohere_Labs @Zai_org @ZyphraAI 🫡

1h821

Florian Brand@xeophon

@pingToven @interconnectsai @NVIDIAAI @Cohere_Labs @Zai_org @ZyphraAI 💖

1h611

Hanna Yukhymenko@a_yukh

@xeophon @Laz4rz @NVIDIAAI @poolsideai @cohere @jetbrains @Zai_org goat 🐐

50m152

V0LYX@0xV0LYX

@natolambert the shadow of frontier models makes it hard to see which small players are actually building something useful

curious which one surprised you the most

1h12

Eren | AI x Markets@ErenSignals

@natolambert This is where the AI story gets less magical and more expensive.

16m1

Rezzi@Rezzi_sol

@natolambert the open model space is diversifying fast

the real story is in specialized models not just the frontier giants

2h1

FNDEVVE@FNDEVVE

@xeophon I think it's a bit misleading, the chart feels incomplete without 'in terms of downloads', most of people use it much more than any other open-source models ever, most don't bother downloading because they couldn't run it (me)