Inkling 2 Small matches Gemini 3.8 Flash in index, set to become top open model outside China.
gemini
| Source: Techmeme | Original article
Artificial Analysis reports that Inkling 2 Small matches Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) in its index and could become the leading open model outside China once its weights are released.
Artificial Analysis, a benchmarking service that aggregates performance across a range of AI tasks, has released its latest index showing that Inkling 2 Small scores on par with Google‑DeepMind’s Gemini 3.8 Flash (high) tier. The result positions Inkling 2 Small as the strongest open‑source model available outside China once its weight files are publicly released.
The comparison, drawn from a suite of metrics that include raw intelligence, pricing, latency, context‑window length and coding ability, places Inkling 2 Small alongside Gemini 3.8 Flash in the “high” performance bracket. In coding benchmarks, Gemini 3.8 Flash holds a public point estimate of 63.6 versus Inkling 2 Small’s 40, but Artificial Analysis’ composite index still rates the two models as equivalent overall. The finding is notable because Gemini 3.8 Flash is widely regarded as a reference point for cutting‑edge commercial LLMs, and matching it signals that the open‑source community is closing the gap with proprietary offerings.
Inkling 2 Small is being introduced as a proprietary offering, initially accessible through Thinking Machines’ Tinker platform. By releasing the model weights later, the developer aims to give researchers and enterprises a high‑performance alternative that can be self‑hosted, sidestepping the cloud‑centric deployment model that dominates most leading LLMs today.
What to watch next: the timing of the weight release will determine how quickly Inkling 2 Small can be adopted in Europe’s growing AI‑first infrastructure. Observers will also track whether the model’s real‑world latency and cost profile live up to the index scores, and how competitors—particularly other open‑source projects—respond to a new benchmark‑level contender. The next few weeks should reveal whether Inkling 2 Small can translate its index parity into tangible market traction.
Sources
Back to AIPULSEN