A mysterious new AI model called Ox Alpha has sent certain corners of the Internet into a frenzy of speculation about who really built it.
The free model was published in OpenRouter on Thursday, where it was described as “a reasoning model designed for coding, sustained agency work, and production workloads.” In X, Stripe CEO Patrick Collison (whose company is acquiring OpenRouter) described Alpha Ox as “very impressive.”
So who is really behind Ox Alpha? The OpenRouter listing described it as a “stealth model” and said it was “developed and operated by a third-party vendor who chose to remain anonymous during this preview.”
As expectedMuch of the speculation has revolved around China. AI analyst Andrew Curran published on friday that initial speculation focused on the GLM models developed by the Chinese company Z.aibut “this morning people seem less sure of anything.”
Similarly, an article about Wccftech He first suggested that the evidence pointed to GLM, but an update suggested that Ox Alpha could be an unreleased version of Microsoft’s MAI. And on Reddit, there are at least a publication declaring that Ox Alpha “cannot be the Chinese”, while another expressed “high confidence” which is actually Chinese.