{"id":93869,"date":"2026-07-03T00:19:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/93869\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T00:19:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:19:08","slug":"metas-watermelon-ai-model-has-caught-up-to-gpt-5-5-alexandr-wang-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/93869\/","title":{"rendered":"Meta&#8217;s Watermelon AI Model Has Caught up to GPT-5.5, Alexandr Wang Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Meta is making significant progress in the AI model race, its superintelligence chief Alexandr Wang told employees today.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/zuckerberg-said-metas-ai-progress-has-been-slower-than-expected-2026-7\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">internal town hall,<\/a> Wang said that Meta&#8217;s upcoming AI model \u2014 which is codenamed Watermelon \u2014 has caught up with OpenAI&#8217;s flagship GPT-5.5 model, he said, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Wang cited the achievement based on closely followed AI model benchmarks. It&#8217;s not clear which benchmarks Wang cited.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Watermelon, our next model after Avocado, is currently in training,&#8221; Wang said in the town hall, according to a person familiar with the matter. &#8220;Watermelon uses an order of magnitude more compute than Avocado,&#8221; he added, referring to Meta&#8217;s internal codename for Muse Spark, the first in a family of models that the company <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/muse-spark-meta-ai-model-2026-4\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">released<\/a> in April.<\/p>\n<p>Meta&#8217;s AI ambitions have long hinged on a simple goal: closing the gap with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Despite a massive investment in chips, data centers, and talent, the company has struggled to convince developers and customers that its models belong at the industry&#8217;s leading edge.<\/p>\n<p>If Wang&#8217;s assessment is accurate, it would mark the clearest sign yet that Meta&#8217;s investment and Zuckerberg&#8217;s aggressive talent blitz are beginning to pay off, even as the race continues to move at a rapid pace.<\/p>\n<p>GPT 5.5 is a powerful chatbot that <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/inside-openai-exclusive-launch-party-chatgpt-planned-itself-2026-5\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">OpenAI released<\/a> in April of this year. OpenAI then debuted its most powerful model yet, GPT 5.6, late last month, but <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/openai-gpt-5-6-limited-preview-us-government-ai-security-2026-6\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">hasn&#8217;t released it generally yet,<\/a> based on the US government&#8217;s requests.<\/p>\n<p>Meta declined to comment. OpenAI didn&#8217;t respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>In April, Meta\u00a0<a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/muse-spark-meta-ai-model-2026-4\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">released the first in a series of models called Muse Spark,<\/a>\u00a0which performed well on benchmarks but did not match or exceed OpenAI or other labs such as Anthropic.<\/p>\n<p>Zuckerberg is ferociously pushing for Meta to get ahead in the AI race. He appointed Wang last year to head this effort, <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/meta-ai-superintelligence-labs-reorg-alexandr-wang-memo-2025-8\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">renaming the company&#8217;s AI division<\/a> to Meta Superintelligence Labs.<\/p>\n<p>At Meta, Wang oversees a team of elite AI researchers known as TBD, along with other AI efforts, such as a <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/meta-superintelligence-labs-taps-leader-for-hardware-role-2026-4\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">recent hardware push<\/a>. Meta has offered top AI talent hundreds of millions of dollars each to join, Business Insider <a target=\"_self\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/thinking-machines-lab-key-talent-meta-openai-xai-2026-5\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">previously reported.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>That talent push comes as Meta ramps up spending on infrastructure. The company told investors this year that it expects to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion this year on chips, data centers, and other infrastructure, up from an earlier forecast of $115 billion to $135 billion, citing rising component costs and additional data center spending.<\/p>\n<p>Have a tip? Contact Charles via email at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/mailto:crollet@businessinsider.com\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;click_type&quot;:&quot;other&quot;,&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;outbound_click&quot;}\" rel=\" nofollow noopener\">crollet@businessinsider.com<\/a> or on Signal and WhatsApp at 628-282-2811. Contact Pranav via email at <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/mailto:pdixit@insider.com\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;click_type&quot;:&quot;other&quot;,&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;outbound_click&quot;}\" rel=\" nofollow noopener\">pdixit@insider.com<\/a> or on Signal at 408-905-9124. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; <a target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/secure-news-tips\" data-track-click=\"{&quot;element_name&quot;:&quot;body_link&quot;,&quot;event&quot;:&quot;tout_click&quot;,&quot;index&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;,&quot;product_field&quot;:&quot;bi_value_unassigned&quot;}\">here&#8217;s our guide to sharing information securely<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta is making significant progress in the AI model race, its superintelligence chief Alexandr Wang told employees today.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24,11132,25,1963,532,2386,8940,34739,1122,527,157,2867,1566,49146,49147,573,1564],"class_list":["post-93869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ai","tag-ai","tag-april","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-chip","tag-company","tag-datum-center","tag-email","tag-massive-investment","tag-meta","tag-model","tag-openai","tag-request","tag-wang","tag-watermelon","tag-watermelon-ai-model","tag-year","tag-zuckerberg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}