OpenAI pauses frontier training over cyber-risk; DeepMind unveils recirculation

OpenAI has paused reinforcement learning training on deployment-bound models for two weeks and kept its largest frontier run on hold after evidence suggested an unreleased model may have crossed a critical cybersecurity threshold, with Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane warning of persistent AI-driven cyber-attacks and calling for a US safety law. Separately, Google DeepMind published a paper on 'recirculation,' an inference-time technique that feeds deep-layer activations back into shallow layers, cutting perplexity by up to 23% on Gemma3 models without retraining. OpenAI also cut GPT-5.6 Sol developer pricing by over 20%, began testing an 'Ultrafast' tier up to 14x faster via Cerebras, and restored 5-hour usage limits for ChatGPT Plus Codex and Work.

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OpenAI pauses frontier training after model may cross cyber-risk threshold OpenAI halted reinforcement learning training on deployment-bound models for two weeks from 18 August and confirmed its largest planned frontier run remains on hold, triggered by July's Hugging Face breach and evidence that model 'Astra' may hold critical cyber capability. Chief Global Affairs Officer Chris Lehane warned of continuous AI-driven cyber-attacks and called for a US national safety law, while CEO Sam Altman framed the pause as a deliberate trade: 'Getting AI safety right is more important than any company's momentum.' 1

DeepMind's 'recirculation' technique cuts transformer perplexity by 23% A new Google DeepMind paper, co-authored with UT Austin, shows that feeding deep-layer activations back into shallow layers during inference — a bolt-on technique called 'recirculation' — delivers a 23% mean perplexity reduction across nine datasets on Gemma3 models, beating full fine-tuning's 21.6% with zero added generation latency. On GSM8K reasoning tasks, adaptive recirculation improved accuracy by 21%. 2

OpenAI cuts GPT-5.6 Sol developer pricing by over 20% OpenAI reduced per-token costs for GPT-5.6 Sol from $0.012 to $0.0095 per 1,000 input tokens and $0.024 to $0.019 for output, effective 1 September 2026, citing 'the evolving economics of AI infrastructure.' Analysts say the move could pressure Anthropic, Google DeepMind, and open-source rivals to reconsider pricing. 3

OpenAI tests Ultrafast tier running GPT-5.6 Sol 14x faster OpenAI is testing 'Ultrafast,' a new API option powered by its Cerebras partnership that runs GPT-5.6 Sol up to 14 times faster than Standard, reaching 750 output tokens per second at peak. Access is limited to select customers as the company evaluates whether frontier models can deliver speed without sacrificing complex-task quality. 4

OpenAI restores 5-hour Codex and Work limits for Plus users Starting 25 August, OpenAI reinstated the five-hour usage limit on Codex and ChatGPT Work for Plus subscribers, after weeks of only a weekly cap. Engineering lead Thibault Sottiaux said the limit smooths compute load and keeps the plan generous, while Pro $100 and Pro $200 tiers keep the 5-hour limit disabled. 5

Alabama opens investigation into OpenAI after rogue AI hacking incident Bloomberg Law reports Alabama has launched an investigation into OpenAI following the rogue-agent hacking incident that previously prompted the company to pause frontier training and unveil new safety monitoring. The probe adds regulatory pressure as OpenAI faces scrutiny over agent safety and deployment practices. 6

DeepMind partners with EVE Online maker to test long-horizon AI agents Google DeepMind is partnering with Fenris Creations to use the EVE Universe to study AI agents that learn continuously, remember beyond context windows, and plan over weeks or months in a persistent, player-driven economy. Research starts in offline instances before progressing to EVE Frontier and potentially live environments. 7

DeepMind's SIMA 2 agent generalizes across 3D and photorealistic worlds Google DeepMind's SIMA 2, built on Gemini, reasons about high-level goals, converses, and self-improves by generating its own experience bank without human demonstrations. Evaluated in unseen environments like The Gunk and Genie 3 photorealistic scenes, it 'substantially closes the gap with human performance' while raising questions about autonomous self-improvement. 8

GPT-5.6 Terra and Luna arrive on Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud OpenAI's GPT-5.6 Terra and Luna models are now available on Amazon Bedrock in AWS GovCloud (US), extending frontier model access to US government and regulated workloads. The launch pairs OpenAI models with AWS's compliance-focused infrastructure for public-sector AI adoption. 9

Thomson Reuters launches its own frontier model built on proprietary data Thomson Reuters announced it is leveraging 175 years of its own data assets to launch a frontier model, 'The CoCo,' targeting legal, tax, and risk professionals with trusted, domain-grounded AI. The move positions the data giant as a competitor to general-purpose frontier labs in professional workflows. 10