Mysterious free AI model draws developer buzz, source remains unknown

OpenRouter introduced Ox Alpha on Thursday as a stealth model from an unidentified third-party, marketed for coding, sustained agentic work, and production workloads. The service is currently free for a week, with the provider asserting the ability to process 100 trillion tokens per day, a scale far exceeding typical AI usage. OpenCode highlighted the model’s near-unlimited access, and Stripe CEO Patrick Collison posted that it is "very impressive."

Early conjecture links the model to a Chinese AI lab, possibly Z.ai, which previously tested GLM-5 under the name "Pony Alpha," while other analysts note tokenizer similarities to Microsoft’s MAI series. The debate remains unresolved, with AI commentator Andrew Curran noting shifting theories within days of the model’s debut.