Microsoft backed OpenAI works on a new large language model called Garlic. The model is being built to compete with Google’s Gemini 3 and Anthropic’s Opus 4.5, especially in areas such as advanced reasoning and coding. According to a report by a common noun, early internal tests show that Garlic is performing well and could be released as GPT five point two or GPT five point five by early next year.
The Garlic project has gained momentum following the strong performance of Google’s Gemini 3. As reported by the common noun, OpenAI’s Chief Research Officer, Mark Chen, told colleagues that Garlic had shown “strong performance” in many benchmark tests. These included reasoning and programming tasks, where Google and Anthropic currently have an advantage.
CEO Sam Altman has reportedly declared a “code red” within the company to enhance ChatGPT and regain OpenAI’s lead in the artificial intelligence race. He informed staff that the company’s new reasoning model was already “ahead” of Gemini 3 in OpenAI’s internal assessments. Although OpenAI has not made any public statements, sources say the company is speeding up Garlic’s development to target an early two thousand twenty six launch.
Garlic is believed to build on the learnings from Shallotpeat, an earlier in house model mentioned by Altman in October. Shallotpeat was intended to challenge Gemini 3, but Garlic includes bug fixes and improvements from that project, especially in the pretraining stage. This stage helps a model identify patterns and relationships across large datasets from the internet.
Chen said Garlic marks a major step forward in pretraining efficiency. He told colleagues that the team had been able to “infuse a smaller model with the same amount of knowledge” that previously required a much larger system. This progress means Garlic may be able to offer GPT four point five level performance at lower cost and at faster speeds.
The development arrives as Google continues to promote its own gains with Gemini 3’s training process. OpenAI’s advancements with Garlic could help balance that progress and give the company a stronger roadmap for future upgrades.
Chen added that Garlic had already surpassed the company’s “previous best” pretraining results and addressed important technical issues that affected GPT four point five, which launched earlier this year. With these improvements, OpenAI believes it can now create smaller but more powerful models without increasing training expenses.
Before Garlic is released, it will complete post training with specialised datasets as well as safety reviews and detailed evaluations. Sources state that Garlic’s early success has already enabled OpenAI to begin building a more advanced follow up model.
If Garlic performs as early reports suggest, it could reshape the balance of power among the major artificial intelligence companies. With OpenAI, Google and Anthropic all pushing for leadership, the race to build the next generation of reasoning models is intensifying, and Garlic may become OpenAI’s strongest move so far.
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