The Institute of Foundation Models at Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI) and G42 have announced the launch of K2 Think, a cutting-edge open-source AI system designed for advanced reasoning tasks. With just 32 billion parameters, K2 Think surpasses many significantly larger models, some up to 20 times its size, demonstrating a leap in parameter efficiency. This makes it a standout alternative for complex reasoning using compact, resource-efficient architectures.
A New Generation of AI Reasoning
K2 Think is built on six pillars of innovation, including:
Long chain-of-thought supervised fine-tuning to enhance logical reasoning
Reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards to improve precision on challenging problems
Agentic planning to help the model break down and solve complex tasks
Test-time scaling techniques that improve adaptability and performance
It will soon be available on Cerebras’ wafer-scale inference-optimized compute platform, which will allow the model to reach 2,000 tokens per second — making it one of the fastest and most efficient reasoning systems currently available.
Leading the Pack
K2 Think is already performing at the top of the industry, ranking #1 among open-source models in math benchmarks such as AIME ’24/’25, HMMT ’25, and OMNI-Math-HARD. Beyond performance, K2 Think also signals a milestone for AI innovation in the UAE, driven by open collaboration between public institutions and private players. It’s a step forward in positioning Abu Dhabi as a global AI hub.
Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of MBZUAI’s Board of Trustees and AIATC Member, said: “The new global benchmark set by K2 Think underscores the pioneering excellence of MBZUAI’s Institute of Foundation Models initiative, an expedited pathway for global collaboration and cutting-edge research. It is also an example of the UAE’s commitment to building advanced systems that are developed by our institutions and shared with the world, ultimately progressing technically groundbreaking, practical, and scalable innovations with transformative global impact.”
Peng Xiao, MBZUAI Board Member and G42 CEO, added: “K2 Think has shifted the AI reasoning paradigm from ‘bigger is better’ to ‘smarter is better’. MBZUAI, supported by the UAE ecosystem, is pushing the AI frontier with technology that is open, efficient and highly capable. By proving that smaller, more resourceful models can rival the largest reasoning systems, this milestone marks the beginning of the next wave of AI innovation.”
Unlike most open AI models that only release weights, K2 Think is entirely open-source—including training data, parameter weights, deployment code, and test-time optimization tools. This ensures global researchers can fully study, reproduce, and improve the model’s capabilities.
Professor Eric Xing, MBZUAI President, said: “K2 Think, developed by MBZUAI’s Institute of Foundation Models, is a significant advancement for the global AI research and development community. By delivering these advances in a fully transparent framework, we are ushering in a new era of cost-effective, reproducible and accountable AI. For an institution just five years young, we are immensely proud of our global researchers, engineers, and teams who are advancing science and technology with ingenuity and a pioneering spirit.”
Building on the UAE’s Open-Source Legacy
K2 Think continues the UAE’s leadership in open-source AI, joining a growing family of models like:
Jais – the world’s most advanced Arabic LLM
NANDA – Hindi language model
SHERKALA – for Kazakh
And follows in the footsteps of K2‑65B, the first fully reproducible open-source foundation model launched in 2024-WAM
