OpenAI will publicly launch its most capable model, GPT‑5.6, on Thursday, after delaying the release last month on the US government's request amid mounting national security concerns that powerful AI systems could be misused.
The United States and China are in a race to develop cutting-edge AI models, the likes of which, experts have said, could dramatically accelerate sophisticated cyberattacks, in sectors that rely on complex, interconnected, and often decades-old technology systems.
Washington has increased scrutiny of advanced AI model releases to identify potential threats on concerns the technology could be misused by military or intelligence in China, Russia or other countries.
Chinese authorities have also held meetings with top tech firms about potentially restricting overseas access to China's most advanced AI models, including those yet to be released.
OpenAI competitor Anthropic had abruptly disabled its most advanced AI models — Mythos 5 and Fable 5 — for all users after the US government's June 12 export control order over national security concerns. The curbs were lifted last week after Anthropic implemented certain safeguards.
Axios, which broke the news on the OpenAI launch, reported that the Trump administration had approved a broad launch of GPT-5.6 following additional testing and meetings between the company and government officials.
The White House and the US Department of Commerce did not respond to a Reuters request for comment outside regular business hours.
OpenAI had limited GPT‑5.6 access to a small group of vetted partners whose details were shared with the authorities.
The ChatGPT-owner will launch its most capable GPT-5.6 Sol, along with lower-cost Terra and Luna models, it said in a post on X late Tuesday.
Billionaire Elon Musk, whose SpaceXAI rivals Anthropic and OpenAI, said on Wednesday his company was also making its leading model Grok 4.5 available to the public.
National security concerns
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order establishing a voluntary framework under which AI developers could provide "covered frontier models" to the US government for up to 30 days before releasing them to trusted partners.
While Washington has lifted export controls for Anthropic's Fable model, Mythos - designed for cybersecurity professionals - is still only available to some "trusted" US organisations.
In China, authorities are worried about the potential for Mythos to exploit software vulnerabilities and that the US might deploy the model against Chinese interests.
Anthropic has warned that it was "probably impossible" to make any AI model fully robust to jailbreaks.
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