Sources: Alexandr Wang said Meta's model currently in training, codenamed Watermelon, matches GPT-5.5 and uses an “order of magnitude more compute than Avocado”

Meta is making significant progress in the AI model race, its superintelligence chief Alexandr Wang told employees today.

Business Insider 2026-07-03

Context & Ripple Effects

Meta’s recent model arc moved from Avocado, described internally as a more capable and more compute-efficient successor to Llama 4 Maverick, to plans for models developed under Alexandr Wang that could be released under an open-source license.

Watermelon is presented as the next escalation: a training run reportedly far larger than Avocado, alongside Meta’s broader data-center buildout and financing activity. The significance is less the unverified benchmark comparison itself than the apparent shift from efficiency gains to substantially greater training scale.

First-order effects

Meta is committing materially more training compute to Watermelon than to Avocado, increasing the resource requirements and stakes of its next model cycle.
A claimed match with GPT-5.5 would strengthen Meta’s internal and external positioning in frontier-model competition, though the comparison is sourced rather than independently benchmarked.

Second-order effects

The larger run increases pressure on Meta’s data-center capacity and financing plans, including the Hyperion project and the use of special-purpose vehicles for AI infrastructure.
If Watermelon’s capability claim holds up, Meta’s planned model-release strategy becomes more consequential: a strong model offered under open-source terms could alter the choices available to developers relative to closed-model providers.

Third-order effects

The progression from Avocado’s efficiency claims to Watermelon’s much larger compute budget points to a two-track frontier race: improving efficiency while still concentrating spending on ever-larger training runs.
If this pattern persists, access to power, data centers, and financing will increasingly shape which companies can sustain frontier-model development, even as some seek differentiation through more open distribution.

The trend: Frontier AI development is becoming a contest over both algorithmic efficiency and the infrastructure capital needed to scale training far beyond prior model generations.

Discussion

@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
Alexandr Wang, head of the META Superintelligence Lab, says that a new Muse Spark update, and an Opus level Muse variant, are both on the way. [image]
@charlesrollet1 Charles Rollet on x
SCOOP: Alexandr Wang says Meta's upcoming AI model - codenamed Watermelon - has caught up to OpenAI's GPT-5.5. “Watermelon uses an order of magnitude more compute than Avocado,” he said in an internal meeting, referencing Meta's previous AI model. https://www.businessinsider.com/…
@alexandr_wang Alexandr Wang on x
First, Mark was clearly talking about the industry's progress on agentic capabilities on the whole. But, while we're on the topic: Our next Muse Spark update is coming soon. Big improvements in coding and agentic capabilities to be more competitive with other leading models.
@sungkim Sung Kim on bluesky
In U.S., AI race is dominated by 2.5 players (.5 being Google). Will we be returning to 3.5 players soon? — www.businessinsider.com/meta-ai- mode...
@dalibali2 @dalibali2 on x
Dario and Sam: speak for yourself
@garymarcus Gary Marcus on x
as expected by whom? 🤔
@ns123abc Nik on x
🚨META CEO Mark Zuckerberg today: “AI agents haven't accelerated in the way we expected.” “We were worried we weren't moving fast enough on AI.” “AI productivity gains aren't what's driving the cuts... we'll see how all this stuff trends.” >$125-145B capex. 8,000 layoffs [image]
@jbulltard1 @jbulltard1 on x
Here comes the capex cut
@deepvaluebagger @deepvaluebagger on x
Is this another reason for ai selloff? Or perhaps Zuck is not very good at this agentic stuff.
@firstadopter Tae Kim on x
Did we really puke two days in a row over leaks that Meta has been bad at developing AI these last few months? Is this a surprise given that Anthropic and OpenAI have been jumping way ahead of Gemini and Meta in agentic? 🤦‍♂️
@andrewcurran_ Andrew Curran on x
On the heels of reports that META is exploring a move into compute-as-a-service like xAI, Mark Zuckerberg told an internal town hall that AI agent development over the last four months hasn't accelerated ‘in the way we expected’. The race continues to narrow. [image]
@petertl Peter Thal Larsen on bluesky
Mark Zuckerberg in January: “We're starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.” — Mark Zuckerberg in July: — www.reuters.com/business/zuc...
r/technology r on reddit
Mark Zuckerberg tells staff that AI agents haven't progressed as quickly as he'd hoped
r/technology r on reddit
Exclusive-Meta's Zuckerberg says AI agent tech progressing slower than expected
@firstadopter Tae Kim on x
Thank you @BusinessInsider All you FUD fearmongers on Meta's capex can calm down now “Watermelon uses an order of magnitude more compute than Avocado” Same town hall everyone freaked out over from sensationalized headlines. Clown show. [image]
@rwang07 Ray Wang on x
🤣
@dratchcap Matt Dratch on x
The more I use harnesses and agents, the more I think web pages (and apps) are the Yellow Pages of our time. You can feel a first-principles redesign of the internet, GUIs, and operating systems coming. In that world, $META has a real shot to gain eyeball time and become the
@pythiar @pythiar on x
In other words, they're not catching up fast enough for Zuck but they are catching up.
@rvc330 @rvc330 on x
when you're a frontier lab but also selling compute because you don't need it but also reassigning researchers to data labeling and also looking into prediction markets and VR glasses and the metaverse
@edzitron Ed Zitron on x
Hey everyone we made a model potentially as good as someone else's. It also takes up way more compute. No real clue how we'll monetize it, and we haven't been able to stand up an API service for our current one. Anyway, see ya
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
Watermelon uses an order of magnitude more compute than Avocado
@inductionheads @inductionheads on x
It isn't just that wang is a huckster It's that he literally led them down exactly the wrong path (all this screen recording nonsense) to try to retcon his scale AI thesis into relevance Time to cut bait Mark (hire @willccbb instead)
@scaling01 @scaling01 on x
Meta is still training their big models but we will get an update on Muse Spark soon
@charlesrollet1 Charles Rollet on x
During the same meeting, Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta is on a “journey to superintelligence.” He added that generally, progress on AI agents technology has been slower than expected. https://www.businessinsider.com/ ...
@daniellefong Danielle Fong on x
Just wait until you see the amount of compute used for the great pumpkin
@bindureddy Bindu Reddy on x
Meta says they have a new model in training, that's as good as GPT 5.5 The problem - the world has already moved on to GPT 5.6 Plus unlike Grok or Gemini, no one can even verify their model performance🤷‍♀️
P. Michael A. Rodey P. Michael A. Rodey on linkedin
I'm sure most of us are not shocked by this news. — If you know Gartner's hype cycle, news like this flags to me we are in what is called the “Peak of Inflated Expectations.” …
@tnewmsblues Tim Newman on bluesky
Zuckerberg said the “'trajectory of the agentic development over at least the last 4 months hasn't really accelerated in the way that we expected,' and the company's bets on the new [employee] structure 'haven't come to fruition yet.'” finance.yahoo.com/technology/ a...
@gergelyorosz Gergely Orosz on x
The industry's progress on agentic capabilities is pretty incredible, esp the last few months. Cloud coding agents are starting to become more common and capable, and local ones are already v powerful. What do they not see at Meta that eg I do?
Dylan Jones Dylan Jones on linkedin
Earlier this year, Meta announced that they were laying off thousands of employees to make room for a huge investment in AI. …
@kimmonismus @kimmonismus on x
According to Alexandr Wang, Meta's next frontier model, codenamed Watermelon, has already caught up with OpenAI's GPT-5.5 on internal benchmarks. The model is still training. One interesting detail: Watermelon reportedly uses an order of magnitude more compute than Avocado [image…
@firstadopter Tae Kim on x
I finally read the full Reuters Meta townhall piece. It's far less scary than the sensationalized headlines and conflated inferences that accounts on @x made it out to be during market hours. Par for the course in our silly markets. Read it here for yourself. Doesn't seem you

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