Meta’s ‘Behemoth’ Llama 4 mannequin may nonetheless be months away

Final month, Meta , its first ever generative AI convention. However whereas the occasion delivered some notable enhancements for builders, it additionally felt a bit underwhelming contemplating how vital AI is to the corporate. Now, we all know a bit extra about why, because of a in The Wall Avenue Journal.

In line with the report, Meta had initially supposed to launch its “Behemoth” Llama 4 mannequin on the April developer occasion, however later delayed its launch to June. Now, it is apparently been pushed again once more, doubtlessly till “fall or later.” Meta engineers are reportedly “struggling to considerably enhance the capabilities” of the mannequin that Mark Zuckerberg has referred to as “the very best performing base mannequin on the earth.”

Meta has already launched two smaller Llama 4 fashions, , and has additionally teased a fourth light-weight mannequin that is apparently nicknamed “Little Llama.” In the meantime, the “Behemoth” mannequin may have 288 billion lively parameters and “outperforms GPT-4.5, Claude Sonnet 3.7, and Gemini 2.0 Professional on a number of STEM benchmarks,” the corporate mentioned .

Meta has by no means given a agency timeline of when to anticipate the mannequin. The corporate mentioned final month that it was “nonetheless coaching.” And whereas Behemoth acquired just a few nods in the course of the LlamaCon keynote, there have been no updates on when it’d really be prepared. That is in all probability as a result of it may nonetheless be a number of months. Inside Meta there are apparently questions “about whether or not enhancements over prior variations are important sufficient to justify public launch.”

Meta did not instantly reply to a request for remark. Because the report notes, it would not be the primary firm to run into snags because it races to launch new fashions and outpace rivals. However the delay remains to be notable given the Meta’s lofty ambitions in terms of AI. Zuckerberg has made AI with Meta planning to spend as a lot as on its AI infrastructure this 12 months.