What is Beam? The buzzy American AI model being called the 'DeepSeek of the West' (www.businessinsider.com)

Reflection AI, a New York startup founded by ex-Google DeepMind researchers, has launched its first major model, Beam, aimed at competing with China’s leading open AI systems. Marketed as a homegrown alternative, Beam is an "open-weight" model designed for various tasks, including coding and multi-step reasoning. With 501 billion total parameters but only 23 billion activated at once, Beam promises efficiency by utilizing significantly less computational power than its competitors, providing similar performance to models like Z.ai's GLM-5.2. The significance of Beam lies in its potential impact on the AI landscape, particularly in positioning the U.S. against China's advancements in open models. Scheduled for a wider release later this month, Beam is poised to democratize access to powerful AI tools, allowing developers to download, customize, and run the model on their own hardware, contrasting with the API-restricted models from major players like OpenAI. As Reflection AI garnered substantial investment and comparisons to the Chinese model DeepSeek, the launch heralds a new phase in the competitive AI space, attracting notable attention from industry leaders and investors alike.