OpenAI — USASI news

White House science summit lists industry partners in the Genesis Mission Consortium

Sun, 11 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On October 8, 2026 the White House published a fact sheet on science initiatives announced at its "Science: A New Golden Age" summit. It says eleven industry partners committed SI-for-science tools and compute credits to the Genesis Mission Consortium, and names NVIDIA, AMD, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, AMP, Emerald AI, AWS, Armada, Crusoe, and Micron. The same fact sheet says NIH, DOE, and Biohub launched a virtual biology initiative to build data and models for virtual cells. The fact sheet describes announcements and commitments rather than an executive order.

OpenAI releases Codex CLI 0.162.0 with managed Git worktree tools

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On October 8, 2026 OpenAI published version 0.162.0 of its open-source Codex CLI on GitHub. The release notes add tools for creating and listing managed Git worktrees from trusted local projects when the worktrees feature is enabled, and add task pinning in the agent Command Center with the p key. They also say live web access and remote compaction can be configured for custom Responses-compatible model providers, and that a signed PowerShell installer is now published with Windows releases. USASI has not tested these changes.

OpenAI releases Codex CLI 0.161.0 with GPT-6.1 Sol as the default model

Thu, 08 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On October 7, 2026 OpenAI published version 0.161.0 of its open-source Codex CLI on GitHub. The release notes say GPT-6.1 Sol is now the default model in the bundled and Amazon Bedrock catalogs, and that Amazon Bedrock supports multi-agent V2 and Ultra reasoning on compatible models. The notes also add a /mcp login command for signing in to MCP servers from an active terminal session, and make Daybreak opt-in through --enable cli_daybreak. USASI has not tested these changes.

OpenAI publishes MCP Extensions, a specification and SDKs for ChatGPT plugins, under Apache 2.0

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On September 29, 2026 OpenAI published the first releases, version 0.1.0, of the Python and Node SDKs for OpenAI MCP Extensions, a project that adds ChatGPT-specific capabilities to the Model Context Protocol so that plugins can work like native ChatGPT features. The repository's README highlights sidebar entrypoints, file extension handlers, composer mentions, and extended forms, and says the project is licensed under Apache 2.0. Version 0.2.0, released on October 10, 2026, adds editable chat drafts and forms that continue across multiple exchanges, and migrates the TypeScript server helpers to MCP SDK 2. The extensions take effect in ChatGPT, OpenAI's hosted product. USASI has not tested the SDKs.

OpenAI adds GPT-6.1 Sol to its API

Thu, 01 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

OpenAI's API changelog lists GPT-6.1 Sol (model ID gpt-6.1-sol) as released on September 29, 2026, describing it as a model for complex coding and professional work at a lower cost than GPT-6 Astra. The changelog says it is available through the Responses and Chat Completions endpoints. Separate changelog entries on the same date add computer use to the Agents API and an Ultrafast mode for GPT-6 Astra in the Responses API. GPT-6.1 Sol is a hosted model; OpenAI has not published its weights.

OpenAI releases GPT-6 Sol and GPT-6 Luna in its API

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On September 22, 2026 OpenAI released GPT-6 Sol (gpt-6-sol) and GPT-6 Luna (gpt-6-luna), according to its API changelog, which describes them as reasoning models that accept text and image inputs and generate text through the Responses and Chat Completions APIs. OpenAI's announcement, as listed in its news feed, presents them as two models with different balances of capability and cost. In a separate changelog entry dated September 25, OpenAI says it fixed a bug in image encoding that degraded image understanding in both models, and recommends rerunning evaluations for use cases with image inputs. Both are hosted models; no release of weights is described. USASI has not tested them.

OpenAI releases GPT-6 Astra in its API

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

OpenAI's API changelog records the release of GPT-6 Astra (gpt-6-astra) on September 3, 2026, for the Responses and Chat Completions endpoints, and says to use it for reasoning, coding, computer use, research, and document creation. The migration notes say GPT-6 Astra does not support the none reasoning effort level, custom temperature or top_p values, or log probabilities, and that tool calling requires the Responses API. The entry also says misalignment monitoring asynchronously checks for potential issues during agent work in supported Responses API requests, and can trigger safety alerts or stop a conversation for review. In a safety overview listed in its news feed the same day, OpenAI says GPT-6 Astra is its first model to reach the Critical level of cybersecurity capability under its Preparedness Framework. GPT-6 Astra is a hosted model; no release of weights is described. USASI has not tested it.

Agent Plugins 1.0.0 published as an open specification for packaging agent skills and MCP servers

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

On August 6, 2026 Vercel announced Agent Plugins 1.0.0, an open, vendor-neutral specification for packaging extensions for AI agents so that one plugin format works across compatible clients. A plugin is a directory with a plugin.json manifest and fixed locations for its components, with Agent Skills under skills/ and MCP server configuration in mcp.json. Vercel says it initiated the proposal, that representatives from AWS, Anysphere, GitHub, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel refined it into version 1.0.0, and that the initial Technical Steering Committee includes core maintainers from AWS, Cursor, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Vercel. ChatGPT and Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Kiro, and VS Code are listed as supported at launch.

OpenAI releases the GPT-5.6 model family, GPT-5.6 Sol, Terra, and Luna, in its API

Tue, 13 Oct 2026 12:00:00 GMT

OpenAI's API changelog records that on July 9, 2026 it released the GPT-5.6 model family: GPT-5.6 Sol for frontier capability, GPT-5.6 Terra for a balance of intelligence and cost, and GPT-5.6 Luna for efficient, high-volume workloads. The entry says the gpt-5.6 alias routes requests to gpt-5.6-sol, and it lists the Responses, Chat Completions, and Batch endpoints. It also says GPT-5.6 adds Programmatic Tool Calling, explicit prompt caching controls, persisted reasoning, max reasoning effort, and Pro mode, with Multi-agent orchestration in beta for the Responses API. The changelog describes hosted models offered through OpenAI's API; it does not describe a release of model weights. USASI has not tested these models.