Foundation Models
3 articlesThe quarterly model wars reshaping AI capabilities
Foundation models are the engines beneath nearly every AI product and workflow. In 2026, the frontier moved from annual releases to monthly cycles: OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and Meta are all shipping major updates quarterly while open-weight models from DeepSeek, Mistral, and Meta's Llama are compressing the cost curve. The result is that the capability gap between frontier and open-source models has shrunk from years to months.
Latest in Foundation Models
Google AI Ultra Cuts Price 60% and Undercuts OpenAI
Google cut its AI Ultra plan 60% from $250 to $100 a month and launched Gemini 3.5 Flash, undercutting OpenAI and Anthropic on frontier AI pricing.
Google TPU 8t Cuts AI Training Cost, Beats Nvidia Pod
Google split its eighth-gen TPU into the 8t and 8i on May 28, cutting AI training cost 2.7x and scaling to 1 million chips to challenge Nvidia directly.
Anthropic 965B Valuation Surpasses OpenAI in 65B Round
Anthropic raised 65B at a 965B valuation on May 28, eclipsing OpenAI for the first time as a 47B revenue run rate and Claude Opus 4.8 reset the AI race.