The Inference Report
July 18, 2026
AI Labs — News
OpenAI and NVIDIA are converging on the same competitive battleground: cost efficiency as the primary measure of AI value. OpenAI's scorecard, centered on cost per successful task and return on compute, is not a neutral measurement framework, it's a direct answer to the question every enterprise customer is now asking. NVIDIA's Vera Rubin positioning around intelligence per dollar for post-training workloads is the infrastructure play on that same insight. The difference is revealing. OpenAI is selling the business case; NVIDIA is selling the hardware that makes that business case work. Hugging Face's move to enable fine-tuning at scale through NeMo Automodel suggests the real competition isn't over foundational model quality anymore, it's over who can deliver useful capabilities cheapest and fastest. When three major players release announcements on the same day all pointing toward cost-per-useful-output as the metric that matters, they're not signaling a shift in strategy. They're confirming one that's already won.
Sloane Duvall
AI Labs — Models
A curated reference of models from major AI labs, with open/closed weight status, input modalities, and context window size. American labs tend towards closed weights models and Chinese labs tend toward open weights models.
AmazonClosed Weights
- Amazon: Nova 2 LiteTextVisionVideoFiles1M
- Amazon: Nova Premier 1.0TextVision1M
Open Weights
None
AnthropicClosed Weights
- Anthropic: Claude Fable 5TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Haiku 4.5TextVisionFiles200K
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.1VisionTextFiles200K
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5FilesVisionText200K
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.6TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.7TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.7 (Fast)TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.8 (Fast)TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4.5TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 4.6TextVisionFiles1M
- Anthropic: Claude Sonnet 5TextVisionFiles1M
Open Weights
None
Google DeepMindClosed Weights
- Google: Gemini 2.5 Flash LiteTextVisionFilesAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 3 Flash PreviewTextVisionFilesAudioVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash LiteTextVisionVideoFilesAudio1M
- Google: Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite PreviewTextVisionVideoFilesAudio1M
- Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro PreviewAudioFilesVisionTextVideo1M
- Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview Custom ToolsTextAudioVisionVideoFiles1M
- Google: Gemini 3.5 FlashTextVisionVideoFilesAudio1M
- Google: Lyria 3 Clip PreviewTextVision1M
- Google: Lyria 3 Pro PreviewTextVision1M
- Google: Nano Banana (Gemini 2.5 Flash Image)VisionText33K
- Google: Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image Preview)VisionText131K
- Google: Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image)VisionText131K
- Google: Nano Banana 2 Lite (Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image)VisionText66K
- Google: Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image Preview)VisionText66K
- Google: Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image)VisionText66K
Open Weights
- Google: Gemma 4 26B A4B VisionTextVideo262K
- Google: Gemma 4 31BVisionTextVideo262K
OpenAIClosed Weights
- OpenAI: GPT AudioTextAudio128K
- OpenAI: GPT Audio MiniTextAudio128K
- OpenAI: GPT Chat LatestTextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5TextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 ChatFilesVisionText128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 CodexTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 ImageVisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 Image MiniFilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 MiniTextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 NanoTextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5 ProVisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1VisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1 ChatFilesVisionText128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1-CodexTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1-Codex-MaxTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.1-Codex-MiniVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2FilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2 ChatFilesVisionText128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2 ProVisionTextFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.2-CodexTextVision400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.3 ChatTextVisionFiles128K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.3-CodexTextVisionFiles400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4TextVisionFiles1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 Image 2VisionTextFiles272K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 MiniFilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 NanoFilesVisionText400K
- OpenAI: GPT-5.4 ProTextVisionFiles1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.5FilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.5 ProFilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 LunaFilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Luna ProFilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 SolFilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Sol ProFilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 TerraFilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: GPT-5.6 Terra ProFilesVisionText1M
- OpenAI: o3 Deep ResearchVisionTextFiles200K
- OpenAI: o4 Mini Deep ResearchFilesVisionText200K
Open Weights
- OpenAI: gpt-oss-120bText131K
- OpenAI: gpt-oss-20bText131K
- OpenAI: gpt-oss-safeguard-20bText131K
xAIClosed Weights
- xAI: Grok 4.20TextVisionFiles2M
- xAI: Grok 4.20 Multi-AgentTextVisionFiles2M
- xAI: Grok 4.3TextVisionFiles1M
- xAI: Grok 4.5TextVisionFiles500K
- xAI: Grok Build 0.1TextVisionFiles256K
Open Weights
None
Mistral AIClosed Weights
- Mistral: Codestral 2508TextFiles256K
- Mistral: Mistral Large 3 2512TextVisionFiles262K
- Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.1TextVisionFiles131K
- Mistral: Mistral Medium 3.5TextVisionFiles262K
Open Weights
- Mistral: Devstral 2 2512TextFiles262K
- Mistral: Ministral 3 14B 2512TextVision262K
- Mistral: Ministral 3 3B 2512TextVision131K
- Mistral: Ministral 3 8B 2512TextVision262K
- Mistral: Mistral Small 4TextVision262K
- Mistral: Voxtral Small 24B 2507TextAudioFiles32K
AI21 LabsClosed Weights
None
Open Weights
- AI21: Jamba Large 1.7Text256K
Alibaba (Qwen)Closed Weights
- Qwen: Qwen Plus 0728Text1M
- Qwen: Qwen Plus 0728 (thinking)Text1M
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder FlashText1M
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder PlusText1M
- Qwen: Qwen3 MaxText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Max ThinkingText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-02-15TextVisionVideo1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.5 Plus 2026-04-20TextVisionVideo1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-FlashTextVisionVideo1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.6 FlashTextVisionVideo1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.6 Max PreviewText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.6 PlusTextVisionVideo1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.7 MaxText1M
- Qwen: Qwen3.7 PlusTextVision1M
Open Weights
- Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22B Instruct 2507Text262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 235B A22B Thinking 2507Text262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3B Instruct 2507Text262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 30B A3B Thinking 2507Text131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 30B A3B InstructText160K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder 480B A35BText1M
- Qwen: Qwen3 Coder NextText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Next 80B A3B InstructText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 Next 80B A3B ThinkingText262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B InstructTextVision131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 235B A22B ThinkingTextVision131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 30B A3B InstructTextVision262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 30B A3B ThinkingTextVision131K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 32B InstructTextVision262K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B InstructVisionText256K
- Qwen: Qwen3 VL 8B ThinkingVisionText256K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5 397B A17BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-122B-A10BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-27BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-35B-A3BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.5-9BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.6 27BTextVisionVideo262K
- Qwen: Qwen3.6 35B A3BTextVisionVideo262K
ByteDanceClosed Weights
- Seed: Seed 1.6VisionTextVideo262K
- Seed: Seed 1.6 FlashVisionTextVideo262K
- Seed: Seed-2.0-LiteTextVisionVideo262K
- Seed: Seed-2.0-MiniTextVisionVideo262K
Open Weights
None
DeepSeekClosed Weights
None
Open Weights
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.1Text164K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.1 TerminusText131K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.2Text164K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V3.2 ExpText164K
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 FlashText1M
- DeepSeek: DeepSeek V4 ProText1M
MiniMaxClosed Weights
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2-herText66K
Open Weights
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2Text205K
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2.1Text205K
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2.5Text205K
- MiniMax: MiniMax M2.7Text205K
- MiniMax: MiniMax M3TextVisionVideo1M