# Thinking Machines Inkling 2 Small: 594B MoE, AA Index 31, closed weights on Tinker

Canonical: https://theagenticweekly.com/news/inkling-2-small · Evidence: Reported · First seen: 2026-11-06 00:42 UTC · Source published: 2026-11-05 00:00 UTC · Brief published: 2026-11-06 06:16 UTC · Updated: 2026-11-06 06:16 UTC · Author: Agentic Weekly

> Thinking Machines Lab introduced Inkling 2 Small on November 5, 2026: a Mixture-of-Experts model with 594B total parameters and 17B active, image inputs, and a score of 31 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index. It is available on Tinker with closed weights; the lab says it intends Apache 2.0 weights next week after safety testing.

Models in this brief: [Inkling 2 Small](https://theagenticweekly.com/models/inkling-2-small)

## What changed

- New second-generation model: Inkling 2 Small is a Mixture-of-Experts model with 594B total parameters, 17B active, image inputs and variable effort.
- Thinking Machines reports a score of 31 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index, above its previous Inkling models, with gains claimed for agentic coding, vision, knowledge work and reasoning.
- Initially available through Tinker with closed weights for playground use, fine-tuning and sampling; checkpoints are downloadable when weights ship.
- The lab says it intends to release full weights under an Apache 2.0 license next week after external safety testing and red-teaming.
- Training details in the post include an 8.4T-token H1 pretrain on GB300 NVL72, a joint RL run of 1,075 steps and over 17 million rollouts, and a 292M-parameter vision encoder.
- Vendor-reported coding scores include 25.4% on FrontierCode v2.0, 72.1% on DeepSWE v1.1 and 86.3% on SWEBench Pro v2 (Hard); vision claims include 64.7% on PerceptionBench.

## In the source's words

> "It is a Mixture-of-Experts model with 594B total parameters, 17B active, and supports image inputs and variable effort."
> (Thinking Machines Lab, Introducing Inkling 2 Small, https://thinkingmachines.ai/news/inkling-2-small/)

> "Inkling 2 Small far surpasses our previous models' scores on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with a score of 31"
> (Thinking Machines Lab, Introducing Inkling 2 Small, https://thinkingmachines.ai/news/inkling-2-small/)

> "We intend to make the full weights available under an Apache 2.0 license next week after the completion of external safety testing and red-teaming."
> (Thinking Machines Lab, Introducing Inkling 2 Small, https://thinkingmachines.ai/news/inkling-2-small/)

## Early verdict

A major Thinking Machines scoop for agentic coding and vision if the AA Index and Tinker availability hold; treat open weights as pending until the promised Apache 2.0 drop. (Basis: Based on the lab's own November 5 announcement; we have not tested the model.)

## What we have not verified

- We did not run Inkling 2 Small on Tinker or reproduce any benchmark scores.
- Apache 2.0 weight release is stated as an intention after safety testing; timing and final license text are not confirmed.
- The detailed benchmark tables are vendor-reported; we did not cross-check third-party leaderboards for this brief.

## Timeline

- Source published: 2026-11-05 00:00 UTC
- First seen by our watcher: 2026-11-06 00:42 UTC (via Hacker News front page (AI posts) (signal); primary source is Thinking Machines Lab announcement)
- Brief published: 2026-11-06 06:16 UTC

## Sources

- [Thinking Machines Lab: Introducing Inkling 2 Small](https://thinkingmachines.ai/news/inkling-2-small/) (primary source) (fetched 2026-11-06)

## Related

- [Inkling 2 Small: specs, price and alternatives](https://theagenticweekly.com/models/inkling-2-small)
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## How to cite

Agentic Weekly, "Thinking Machines Inkling 2 Small: 594B MoE, AA Index 31, closed weights on Tinker", published 2026-11-06 06:16 UTC, https://theagenticweekly.com/news/inkling-2-small