Models
Reflection promises an open model that matches China's GLM-5.2 for less compute
Reflection AI unveils Beam, an open text model that, according to the company itself, performs like China's GLM-5.2 with far less computing power. It can't be downloaded yet, and no one has verified its figures.
The essentials
1 confirmed fact · 2 according to the source · 3 open questions
- Reflection AI unveils Beam, an open text model with 501 billion parameters, of which it uses 23 billion at a time.12
- According to the sourceReflection says Beam matches Z.ai's GLM-5.2 in advanced reasoning with three to four times less compute. No one has verified this.12
- According to the sourceReflection says it will release the weights this October. For now, there is only early access through a waiting list.12
Why it matters
If confirmed, Western companies and governments would have an open model that is cheaper to run than the Chinese ones. But Kimi K3 is still ahead in raw capability, according to MarkTechPost2. Beam's advantage is cost, not power.
The details
Beam works only with text. It is a "mixture of experts" model: it splits the work among specialized parts and activates only 23 billion parameters each time1. For now there is a waiting list, because the model is in final safety testing, according to MarkTechPost2. The weights, meaning the downloadable model, would arrive this month, with an Apache 2.0 license planned12.
What we don't know
- Whether independent tests confirm that Beam matches GLM-5.2 with less compute.
- The exact release date for the weights and the final license.
- The safety results, which Reflection says will come in its technical report.
Sources
- 1Reflection debuts Beam, an open-weight AI model to rival Chinese models at lower compute cost
- 2Reflection AI Introduces Beam: A 501B Open-Weight MoE Model With 23B Active Parameters for Coding and Agentic Workloads
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This story was written in Spanish by an artificial intelligence system from the sources listed above, and translated automatically. Before publication, a program checks that every figure and every name appears in the sources, and that the translation keeps the same facts, figures and sources. It has not been reviewed by a person. Spanish original · How we work (in Spanish)