AI Matters
Why it matters
Thinking Machines releases highly efficient Inkling Small reasoning model
The Decoder Thinking Machines bets on efficiency over size with its second model, Inkling Small
AI startup Thinking Machines released Inkling Small, an open-weights model that is less than a third the size of its flagship model but beats it on coding benchmarks.
Why it matters
Smaller, open-weights models that outperform larger predecessors make advanced reasoning cheaper and more accessible to run locally.
Latest brief · Jul 31, 2026