It had to submit the three models to government for approval.
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OpenAI will publicly launch all three of GPT-5.6’s variants — Sol, Luna and Terra — this Thursday, July 9, the company has announced on X. “We’re expanding preview access globally now,” it added. The company initially made the new model series available to a “small group of trusted partners” in late June, due to a request from the Trump administration.
If you’ll recall, President Trump had signed an AI cybersecurity order in early June, which asks companies to voluntarily present their most powerful models for government review 30 days before releasing them to the public. For GPT-5.6’s initial release, it was only rolled out to select government-approved entities. “We don’t believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default,” OpenAI said back then, but it added that it was complying because it was the best way to ensure that it can release its latest model series to the public soon.
Sure enough, it will not take OpenAI 30 days before making GPT-5.6 more broadly available. According to Axios, the Trump administration gave OpenAI permission for a wider release after putting the model through additional testing and conducting more meetings with the company. The Department of Commerce’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation conducted those additional tests, with the company sending technical experts to DC so they can immediately address potential questions and concerns.
GPT-5.6 comes in three variants, with Sol being the company’s strongest model yet. Terra is for everyday use and promises a similar performance to GPT‑5.5 despite being twice as cheap, while Luna is the company’s lowest cost model. The Sol variant costs $5 per million input tokens and $30 per million output, whereas Terra costs $2.50 per million input tokens and $15 for output and Luna costs $1 per million input and $6 for output.
Anthropic also had to block all access to its latest Mythos cybersecurity and Fable models to ensure compliance when the government ordered it to prevent all foreign nationals from being able to use them. The company has since received the government’s permission to redeploy the more exclusive Mythos 5 model and, eventually Fable 5, its counterpart that brings many of its capabilities to the public.
