OpenAI delays launch of its first open model yet again, Sam Altman explains why

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has announced that the company’s first open-weight model is being delayed yet again. Altman stated that the model was supposed to be released next week but it is being delayed in order to run additional safety tests and review high-risk areas. 

In a post on X annoucing the delay of OpenAI’s new model, Altman wrote, “We planned to launch our open-weight model next week. We are delaying it; we need time to run additional safety tests and review high-risk areas. we are not yet sure how long it will take us.”

“While we trust the community will build great things with this model, once weights are out, they can’t be pulled back. this is new for us and we want to get it right. sorry to be the bearer of bad news; we are working super hard!” he added.

The latest delay comes afer Altman had announced last month that the open model was being delayed. 

“Our research team did something unexpected and quite amazing and we think it will be very very worth the wait, but needs a bit longer.” Altman stated then. 

Why is OpenAI making an open weight model? 

After the the viral moment of DeepSeek’s open source AI models earlier in the year, a lot of pressure had been built on OpenAI to develop similar models given that the originally built on idea of open source and open collaboration. Apart from DeepSeek, Alibaba’s Qwen and Meta’s Llama models are also open weights which are easier for developers to customize and deploy. 

Meanwhile, even enterprise users have grown to prefer open-weight models because they offer more flexibility and control. 

In order to counter this criticism, Altman had announced earlier in the year that OpenAI will build a open-weight model with reasoning abilities. Altman had also publiclly acknowledged that OpenAI was on the ‘wrong side of history’ regarding the open source debate and stated that the ChatGPT maker wanted to get a open-weight model for some time but ‘other priorities took precedence’