OpenAI Dropped Work on New ‘Arrakis’ AI Model in Rare Setback

Late last year, around the time ChatGPT became a global sensation, the engineers at OpenAI began working on a new artificial intelligence model, codenamed Arrakis.

Although OpenAI was preparing to boost ChatGPT with a different model, now known as GPT-4, which it had completed earlier in the year, the upcoming Arrakis model would allow the company to run the chatbot less expensively. Success with Arrakis would also help OpenAI show Microsoft how fast it could create successive large language models, which would be valuable as the two firms finished negotiating a $10 billion investment and product deal.

But by the middle of 2023, OpenAI had scrapped the Arrakis launch after the model didn’t run as efficiently as the company expected, according to people with knowledge of the situation.