Researchers open source Sky-T1, a ‘reasoning’ AI model that can be trained for less than $450
Sky-T1, a $450 reasoning AI model from NovaSky, competes with OpenAI's o1 on some benchmarks, using open-source methods.

NovaSky, operating from UC Berkeley's Sky Computing Lab, has unveiled Sky-T1-32B-Preview, a reasoning AI model developed at a cost below $450. This model, open-source by design, was developed with synthetic data and outperforms an earlier iteration of OpenAI's o1 on select benchmarks, showing the potential for cost-effective high-level reasoning capabilities.
Sky-T1 underwent training utilizing Alibaba’s QwQ-32B-Preview for initial data and OpenAI’s GPT-4o-mini for data formatting, substantially cutting costs compared to models that previously demanded millions in development. It demonstrated superior performance on MATH500 and LiveCodeBench, although it underperformed in the GPQA-Diamond, which focuses on advanced science topics.
Despite these results, Sky-T1 lags behind the full GA release of OpenAI's o1 and the anticipated o3 model in scientific problems. Nevertheless, NovaSky indicates this is just the beginning of open-source AI models, with plans to develop increasingly efficient and accurate reasoning models, paving the way for innovation in the field.