# Ten open-weight models passed 1T parameters. All ten came from China

> Epoch AI lists no open-weight model above 1T from outside China since 2025; Mistral Large 4 would break that streak once its weights ship.

Tec N Trend data brief · 2026-10-07 · https://tecntrend.com/briefs/2026-10-07/mistral-1t

Mistral announced Large 4 on 6 October, a model with 1 trillion total parameters, according to TechCrunch and The Decoder. The Decoder reports 49 billion are active per token. It is live as a preview, with open weights promised for later this month.

Epoch AI's notable-models table shows how rare that size is in the open. Since July 2025 it records ten open-weight releases at 1T or more (Kimi, Qwen, DeepSeek, Ant's Ling, Xiaomi MiMo, Meituan LongCat), and every one is from a Chinese lab. Mistral's largest earlier entry is Pixtral Large at 124 billion, so Large 4 is about 8 times bigger.

The test is delivery. Until the weights are downloadable, Large 4 sits in the "announced" column. Watch for the licence terms and for whether the 49B active-parameter count holds, since that, not the 1T headline, sets running cost.

## Key numbers
- Mistral Large 4 (total params): 1 trillion
- Open-weight 1T+ models, all Chinese: 10
- Largest earlier Mistral in Epoch (Pixtral Large): 124 billion
- Size jump vs that model: about 8x

## Chart: Models of 100B+ parameters by release date
Data: https://tecntrend.com/briefs/2026-10-07/mistral-1t.json

## Sources
- [Epoch AI, Notable AI Models](https://epoch.ai/data/notable_ai_models.csv) (CC BY 4.0, captured 2026-10-07)
- [TechCrunch, Mistral Large 4 report](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/06/mistrals-new-1t-model-aims-to-leapfrog-closed-and-open-rivals/) (news report (facts only), captured 2026-10-07)
- [The Decoder, Mistral Large 4 report](https://the-decoder.com/mistral-large-4-is-said-to-be-the-most-powerful-open-ai-model-from-europe-and-the-u-s/) (news report (facts only), captured 2026-10-07)
- News: [Mistral’s new 1T model aims to leapfrog closed and open rivals](https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/06/mistrals-new-1t-model-aims-to-leapfrog-closed-and-open-rivals/) (TechCrunch, 2026-10-06)
- News: [Mistral Large 4 is Europe's trillion-parameter answer to US models that refuse security work](https://the-decoder.com/mistral-large-4-is-said-to-be-the-most-powerful-open-ai-model-from-europe-and-the-u-s/) (The Decoder, 2026-10-06)

## Caveats
- Mistral Large 4 is not in Epoch's data (latest entry 2026-09-30). Its point (1,000 billion, 2026-10-06) comes from TechCrunch and The Decoder and is flagged as "announced, weights pending".
- Epoch records total parameters. For mixture-of-experts models only a fraction is active per token, so size is not a quality or cost ranking.
- Epoch's "open weights" flag follows its own accessibility field and includes restricted and non-commercial licences. The chart shows 67 open-weight and 31 other models of 100B+ (plus Mixtral 8x7B), from 2023.
- Most closed frontier models do not disclose size, so the "no open weights" points are only those with a disclosed or estimated count; some Epoch values are rated speculative (for example Grok 4 at 3T).
- The closest US open-weight model is Thinking Machines' Inkling at 975 billion (July 2026), just under the 1T line. Epoch also lists Google's 2021 Switch Transformer (1.57T, open weights); it is a research model, outside the 2025-26 LLM wave counted in the title.