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Across 42 notable language models, Epoch AI estimates frontier training costs have risen from roughly $2 million for GPT-3 to up to nearly $390 million per run
Verified 2026-08-04
Track with InsiderWhy it matters
Training a leading AI model now costs so much that only the richest companies can compete.
The screener · 78 companiesEvery layer of the AI chain, priced dailyHow this was verifiedEvery figure links to the filing it came from
More on Models
- AI models can now win gold at the International Mathematical Olympiad, yet Stanford's 2026 AI Index found they still fumble a task most children master early. Across ClockBench's 180 clock designs and 720 questions, the top model, GPT-5.4 High, read analog clocks correctly only 50.6% of the time, versus 90.1% for humans
- After briefly nearly closing in 2024, the performance gap between the best closed-weight and open-weight AI models widened again on the Arena leaderboard. As of March 2026, Stanford's 2026 AI Index finds the top closed model leads the top open model by 3.3%, up from a 0.5% lead in August 2024
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