OpenAI announced its next major AI model Saturday, and it did so in the third paragraph of a blog post called “Ten advances in mathematics and theoretical computer science.” The math results the post is touting, OpenAI writes, “were achieved by an internal version of Astra, our next major model.” So there you go. It sounds like after GPT-5.6 Sol comes either GPT-5.6 Astra, or GPT-6 Astra, or—who knows?—just “Astra” and the whole GPT part gets scrapped? It’s not spelled out. OpenAI’s naming conventions suggest that this would be another GPT-5.6 release. There’s a GPT-5.6 Terra, which, as corny Latin-knowers are well aware, means “earth,” Luna which is Latin for “moon,” and Sol, which is Latin for “sun.” Astra means “the stars.” According to an anonymously sourced story in the Information, Astra boasts the ability to do “long-running” work. CEO Sam Altman was, the report claims, in Washington, D.C. over the past week, demoing the model to federal officials.
Gizmodo asked OpenAI on Saturday for the official name of the model. We also asked OpenAI about the relationship between this model and another OpenAI model only vaguely described in one of that company’s blog posts. We did not receive a reply.
