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Model prices /1M out
Qwen3.8-Max $6.00
Grok 4.5 $6.00
Mistral Medium 3.5 $7.50
Gemini 3.6 Flash $7.50
Claude Sonnet 5 $10.00
GPT-5.6 Terra $12.00
GPT-5.6 Sol $20.00
Claude Opus 5 $25.00
Claude Fable 5 $50.00
BREAKING AI Anthropic is designing its own AI chips. The model race is becoming a systems race. Latest updates →
TOP STORIES All intelligence →
Infrastructure

OpenAI’s one-year deprecation clock on the Assistants API reaches zero today. The company’s own documentation shows no sign of a reprieve, even as independent confirmation that calls are now failing remains thin.

Twenty-six August 2026 is the date OpenAI fixed exactly one year ago for retiring the Assistants API, and every primary document 18BYTE can reach still carries that date unchanged, though independent, dated confirmation that calls are now failing remains hard to find.

6 min read →
POPULAR NOW

An editorial snapshot, not a measured global ranking.
Reviewed and reordered August 7, 2026. How we rank →

TODAY'S EIGHT

The eight signals worth your attention

An editorially selected map of what moved across the AI landscape, one signal per beat.

01 Research

Claude-designed protein binders bound their targets in an independent wet lab. Anthropic is calling it evidence that AI-assisted drug discovery has crossed from simulation into biology.

Anthropic says Claude-designed protein binders were independently validated by Adaptyv Bio and Twist Bioscience, hitting 22-35 percent of…

5 min read
02 Models

Alibaba shipped the Qwen3.8-Max open weights. The commitment was met, two days late and one model short.

The weights are up. But what was released is the text-only base checkpoint under a custom licence, not…

3 min read
03 Infrastructure

OpenAI switches off the Assistants API on 26 August 2026. Production apps that still call it will start failing tomorrow, and there is no automated fix.

OpenAI shuts down the Assistants API on 26 August 2026 with no automated migration tool for Threads or…

5 min read
04 Enterprise

NVIDIA opens Alpamayo 2 Super for commercial autonomous-vehicle work

Physical AI carries a higher cost of error than a chatbot. Releasing a reasoning model for the rare…

1 min read
05 Applications

Does your AI train on your work? The defaults, read plainly

Almost everyone assumes their AI subscription is private by default. On most products it is the opposite, and…

4 min read
06 Markets

OpenAI cut the price of its top model by a fifth. The frontier price war has reached the model it was supposed to spare.

OpenAI cut GPT-5.6 Sol pricing by 20-33% for three months, the first frontier-tier price cut in a run…

5 min read
07 Policy

NVIDIA joins a U.S. program to widen access to AI infrastructure

A 100 million dollar programme across up to ten hubs will not close the compute gap, but it…

1 min read
08 Talent

Google split its AI leadership in two. The problem it is solving is a scheduling one.

Google has the research depth and a Pro tier that has not moved since February. This reorganisation is…

3 min read
THE WATCHLIST

What we are waiting to find out

Reporting says what happened. These are the open questions our reporting raised, each with a specific answer coming and a way to tell when it arrives. Not predictions.

  1. Does Claude Sonnet 5 rise by 50 percent on 31 August 2026?

    What would settle it Anthropic lists USD 2.00 input and USD 10.00 output per million as an introductory rate ending 31 August 2026, after which it becomes USD 3.00 and USD 15.00. The pricing page on 1 September settles it.

  2. Does Alibaba release the Qwen3.8-Max open weights?

    What would settle it Alibaba announced the model on 3 August 2026 with a commitment to publish weights within a week. Weights appearing under a named licence would settle it. Until then we do not describe the model as open.

  3. Does Gemini 3.1 Pro lose its preview label?

    What would settle it It launched on 19 February 2026 and still ships under a preview model identifier. A stable identifier from Google settles it, and it is the clearest single test of whether the August leadership split changes the shipping cadence.

See the full Watchlist →
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