AI Daily · Sep 18, 2026: Qwen Launches Omni-Modal Model; Anthropic Open-Sources Optimizations
Qwen released its first omni-modal model Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash with native audio-video understanding; Anthropic used Claude to optimize and open-source 30+ biology models with an average 4x speedup.
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Qwen Unveils Omni-Modal Model Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash
Qwen released Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash, its first omni-modal model integrating native audio-video understanding, reasoning, and tool use for autonomous task execution.
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Anthropic Uses Claude to Optimize 30+ Biology Models, Open Sourcing
Anthropic used Claude to write custom GPU software that achieved an average 4x speedup for more than 30 open-source models in biology, with optimizations open sourced.
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Anthropic backs protein design competition with $1M in Claude credits
Anthropic partners with Adaptyv Bio on a protein design competition that will experimentally validate over 5,000 designs. Support includes up to $1 million in Claude credits, $250,000 in Modal compute, and DNA from Twist Bioscience.
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Ternary Bonsai 2 27B: 9x Smaller, Retains 98.2% Performance
PrismML released a ternary quantized model based on Qwen3 27B that is 9x smaller while retaining 98.2% of aggregate benchmark performance, with a 5.9 GB footprint.
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TypeSafe's Jev decision model debuts on OpenRouter at low token price
TypeSafe's System One decision model Jev is now in beta on OpenRouter. It costs $0.042 per million input tokens with free output, responding in 70–500 ms, and returns typed decisions with probabilities instead of text.
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Cline Desktop Launch Offers Free Kimi K3 with Extra Tokens
Cline Desktop launches as a native interface for open weights models, and Kimi K3 is now free inside it, offering extra tokens for new users.