By the WahLiao desk · Last verified 1 October 2026
Super Intelligence, the kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, is built by a small group of companies. Three American firms set the pace in 2026: OpenAI (ChatGPT, running on its GPT-6 family), Anthropic (Claude, whose Opus 5.5 and Sonnet 5.5 arrived in September 2026) and Google DeepMind (Gemini, whose newest general release is Gemini 3.6 Flash). Around them sit Meta, Microsoft and xAI in the US, Mistral in France, DeepSeek and Alibaba in China, and Singapore’s own SEA-LION from AI Singapore. Almost all of them can be used from Singapore today, and several give away their models for anyone to download.
The single most useful rule: the brand on the app is not always the maker of the model inside it. Microsoft’s Copilot runs on OpenAI models as well as Microsoft’s own, and Singapore’s SEA-LION is built on top of Alibaba’s Qwen. Ask who made the model, and where your data goes, before you ask which is “best”.
Who makes AI models: quick facts
| US makers | OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta, Microsoft, xAI (now part of SpaceX) |
| European maker | Mistral AI, Paris |
| Chinese makers | DeepSeek (Hangzhou), Alibaba (Qwen) |
| Singapore’s own | SEA-LION, by AI Singapore, tuned for Southeast Asian languages |
| Open-weight leaders | DeepSeek, Mistral, Qwen (smaller models), Google Gemma, OpenAI gpt-oss, SEA-LION |
| Chip layer | Nvidia dominates; Google TPUs and Amazon Trainium are the main alternatives |
| Release pace | New versions every few weeks; names in this guide are dated 1 October 2026 |
The WahLiao Verdict
| Big three | ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini are all officially supported in Singapore. |
| Best value | Start free. Pay only when you hit a limit that costs you time. |
| Watch the data | DeepSeek says it stores personal data in China. Decide with that in view. |
| Open-weight | Great for developers and privacy-minded firms, not needed by most people. |
| Version numbers | Ignore the hype cycle. Families matter more than point releases. |
The main makers at a glance
Model names change fast, so this table gives the family and the newest release we could confirm from the maker or reputable reporting. “Open-weight” means the trained model can be downloaded and run on your own computers; “closed” means you can only use it through the maker’s app or paid connection.
| Maker (home) | Chatbot and model family | Open or closed |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI (US) | ChatGPT; GPT-6 family, with Sol and Luna released on 22 September 2026 | Closed flagship; open-weight gpt-oss models since August 2025 |
| Anthropic (US) | Claude; Opus 5.5 (22 Sept 2026), Sonnet 5.5 (28 Sept 2026), plus the higher-end Fable and Mythos 5.1 | Closed |
| Google DeepMind (UK/US, part of Alphabet) | Gemini; Gemini 3.6 Flash (July 2026), with 3.5 Pro still in partner testing | Closed Gemini; open-weight Gemma 4 (April 2026) |
| Meta (US) | Meta AI in WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook; Muse Spark (April 2026), updated to 1.1 in July | Muse Spark closed; older Llama models open-weight |
| Microsoft (US) | Copilot; OpenAI models, its own MAI models and, in Microsoft 365 Copilot, Anthropic’s Claude as an option | Closed |
| xAI (US, part of SpaceX since February 2026) | Grok, inside X and on its own app; Grok 4.6 (August 2026) | Closed |
| Mistral AI (France) | Le Chat; Mistral Medium 3.5 (April 2026), Mistral Large 3 | Mostly open-weight |
| DeepSeek (China) | DeepSeek app; DeepSeek-V4 Pro and Flash (full release July to August 2026) | Open-weight, MIT licence |
| Alibaba (China) | Qwen Chat; Qwen3.7-Max (June 2026) | Max closed; smaller Qwen3.6 models open-weight |
| AI Singapore (Singapore) | SEA-LION; Qwen-SEA-LION-v4.5 (May 2026) | Open-weight, MIT licence |
On availability: OpenAI, Anthropic and Google all list Singapore as a supported country for their chatbots, and none of the three lists mainland China. Anthropic says it will open a Singapore office in October 2026, its first in Southeast Asia; OpenAI opened one here in late 2024. The others can generally be reached on the web or through their apps, but check each service’s terms before you rely on it for work.
Closed vs open-weight: why it matters
A closed model lives on the maker’s servers. You type, it answers, and the company keeps control of the model, the safety rules and your data under its privacy terms. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Grok and Meta’s Muse Spark all work this way. For most people this is simply the easiest option: nothing to install, and the newest version appears automatically.
An open-weight model is one whose trained “weights”, the billions of numbers that make up the model, are published for anyone to download. DeepSeek-V4 and SEA-LION use the MIT licence; Google’s Gemma 4 and Mistral Large 3 use Apache 2.0. A company can run such a model on its own machines, so customer data never leaves the building, and can adjust it for a particular language or job. That is exactly what AI Singapore did: its latest SEA-LION is built on Alibaba’s open-weight Qwen3.6 and tuned for Burmese, Filipino, Indonesian, Malay, Tamil, Thai and Vietnamese as well as English. Earlier SEA-LION versions were built on Meta’s Llama.
Two cautions. Open-weight is not the same as “open source” in the full sense, because the training data and methods are usually not published. And using a Chinese model’s downloaded weights on your own computer is a different matter from using its app: DeepSeek’s privacy policy says it “collects, processes and stores your personal data in the People’s Republic of China”. Our guide to what happens to what you type covers the settings and the PDPA angle.
The line is also moving. Meta built its name on open Llama models but made its newest model, Muse Spark, closed, while saying it may release an open version later. Alibaba kept its top Qwen3.7-Max closed while still publishing smaller models. OpenAI, long closed, released open-weight gpt-oss models in August 2025.
The chip layer: who supplies the engines
Every one of these models is trained and run on specialised chips in large data centres, and one company supplies most of them. Nvidia reported revenue of US$96.2 billion for the quarter ended 26 July 2026, of which US$89.0 billion came from its data centre business, up 117% on a year earlier. Its chief executive, Jensen Huang, said “compute is revenue”.
The main alternatives come from the cloud giants themselves. Google designs its own TPU chips, and Anthropic agreed in October 2025 to use up to one million of them, while also training on Amazon’s Trainium chips and Nvidia GPUs. Spreading work across several chip makers is now a common way for labs to control cost and avoid shortages. For how this plays out in electricity and land here, see energy, water and data centres in Singapore. Chip company results are volatile, and nothing on this page is a view on any share.
Which one should I use?
WahLiao has no favourite, and for everyday tasks the leading chatbots are closer than their marketing suggests. A practical way to choose:
Try the free tiers of two or three with a real task from your week, such as a letter, a spreadsheet question or a school worksheet, and keep the one whose answers you check least. Match the tool to where you already work: Gemini sits inside Google’s apps, Copilot inside Microsoft 365, Meta AI inside WhatsApp and Instagram where it is offered. Pay only when a limit costs you time, and compare plans in S$ on our free vs paid plans page. Singapore citizens aged 18 and above who finish an eligible SkillsFuture AI course can get six months of a premium tool free. Whichever you pick, they all make confident mistakes, so check anything that matters, and read using it well for the habits that help most. For Singapore’s wider role, from AI Singapore to AI Verify, see Singapore’s own AI story.
Who makes AI models: FAQ
Who owns ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is made by OpenAI, based in San Francisco. Microsoft is a major partner and investor and uses OpenAI models in Copilot, but it does not run ChatGPT.
Is Gemini the same as Google DeepMind?
Gemini is the model family and chatbot; Google DeepMind is the Alphabet research unit that builds it. Google also publishes a separate open-weight family called Gemma.
Is DeepSeek safe to use in Singapore?
If you use its app, note that DeepSeek’s privacy policy says personal data is stored in China. Keep sensitive, personal and work information out of it, as you would with any chatbot. Its open-weight models can also be run on your own hardware, which keeps data local.
What is SEA-LION?
SEA-LION is a family of open-weight language models from AI Singapore, the national programme, tuned for Southeast Asian languages. The current version, Qwen-SEA-LION-v4.5, released in May 2026, is built on Alibaba’s Qwen3.6.
What does open-weight AI mean?
It means the trained model file is published so anyone can download, run and adapt it within the licence. It does not usually include the training data, so it is more open than a closed model but not fully “open source”.
Read next
This page belongs to Super Intelligence. Next, read Super Intelligence agents explained.
Sources checked 1 October 2026: Anthropic, newsroom (Opus 5.5, Sonnet 5.5, Fable and Mythos 5.1); TechCrunch, OpenAI launches GPT-6 Sol and Luna; Bloomberg Government, GPT-6 Astra; OpenAI, introducing gpt-oss; DataNorth, Gemini 3.6 Flash; Let’s Data Science, Gemini 3.5 Pro status; DataNorth, Gemma 4; eMarketer, Meta’s Muse Spark; ProPakistani, Muse Spark 1.1; Digital Citizen, Microsoft MAI models; GeekWire, Claude in Microsoft 365 Copilot; Sacra, SpaceX acquires xAI; SiliconANGLE, Grok 4.6; Wikipedia, Mistral AI; Mistral AI, Mistral 3; Wikipedia, DeepSeek; MemX, DeepSeek privacy policy; DeepLearning.AI The Batch, Qwen3.7-Max; AI Singapore on Hugging Face, Qwen-SEA-LION-v4.5; TechNode, SEA-LION moves to Qwen; OpenAI, supported countries; Anthropic, supported countries; Google, where you can use Gemini; Fortune, Anthropic Singapore office; Nvidia, Q2 fiscal 2027 results; DatacenterDynamics, Anthropic and Google TPUs. General information, not investment advice. Last updated 1 October 2026.
