Poolside Unveils Laguna AI Model to Challenge Global Rivals

Artificial intelligence startup Poolside is re-emerging after nearly two years out of the spotlight with a new large language model that it says can compete with leading American and Chinese open-source AI systems, Bylain Martin reported for Forbes.

Poolside says its new Laguna AI model is designed to compete with the world's leading open-source AI systems. [Photo: Poolside X]

Founded by former GitHub Chief Technology Officer Jason Warner, Poolside raised $500 million in 2024 at a valuation of $3 billion to develop AI coding agents for governments and large enterprises.

After a prolonged period of relative silence, the company has introduced a new AI model called Laguna.

According to Warner, Laguna outperforms competing American and Chinese open-source models on public benchmarks, with the exception of Moonshot AI's Kimi K3.

"As an American company building for the West, we'll be the most capable open model in the West," Warner told Forbes. "Globally, in this weight class of the 118-billion-parameter model, we are the leader."

Warner said Poolside spent the past 18 months building an automated "model-building factory" capable of producing increasingly advanced AI models on a five-week development cycle.

"The classic notion of model building is an artisanal process. We've built an industrial model-building process," he said.