Thinking Machines Lab

Summary: AI research lab (Thinking Machines Lab, Inc.) founded by Mira Murati, developing open-weight multimodal models (Inkling) and the Tinker fine-tuning/platform customization service.

Details

Key Products

  • Inkling: 975B open-weight multimodal MoE model (Apache 2.0)
  • Tinker: Model customization and fine-tuning platform (API + cookbook + renderers package)

Leadership

  • Mira Murati (former OpenAI CTO) — Founder/CEO

Research Focus

  • Open-weight foundation models with broad capabilities
  • Fine-tuning infrastructure for developer customization
  • Multimodal (text, image, audio) unified architectures
  • Honest benchmarking and transparent release practices

Distribution

  • Model weights: Hugging Face (thinkingmachines/inkling)
  • API: Tinker platform + third-party inference partners
  • Fine-tuning: Tinker Cookbook, tml-renderers PyPI package

Significance

New entrant (2026) with high-profile leadership pursuing open-weight + platform strategy. Inkling's architectural variations (short convolutions, embedding RMSNorm, learned relative-position bias) show willingness to experiment beyond standard MoE recipes. Tinker platform suggests business model around fine-tuning/customization rather than raw model access.

Related Concepts

Sources

  • inkling-model-card: General Information — Thinking Machines Lab, Inc. is the legal provider of Inkling model; develops Tinker fine-tuning platform
  • inkling-raschka-blog: Introduction — Thinking Machines Lab develops Tinker, a model customization and fine-tuning platform