The Nvidia-backed startup has committed more than $7B to compute through 2029, including a $1B deal with Nebius and monthly payments of $150M to SpaceX’s Colossus cluster since July. Reflection has briefed officials in Washington ahead of the release, which coincides with a planned wave of open-weight models from other unnamed American labs this month to increase U.S. competitiveness against Chinese AI.
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
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Reflection Launches Open AI Model to Rival China After $7B Spend
AI16 days ago
A new open-weight artificial intelligence system from Reflection will allow businesses to download and customize the model with private data starting this month. The model is designed to compete directly with top Chinese open systems such as DeepSeek and Qwen, providing U.S. enterprises with a domestic alternative. While sources say the setup can rival the most expensive frontier systems in certain cases, it is expected to initially trail the best closed-source systems in the U.S.
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