Epoch AI is a 501(c)(3) research nonprofit that maintains open datasets on AI models, compute, data centers, chips, and companies, runs its own benchmarks, and publishes research, a newsletter, and a podcast, all under a transparency policy that itemizes its funders and paid consultations.
Where the other sites in this category tell you what is winning this week, Epoch tells you how fast the whole field is moving, and lets you download the series behind the claim.
What it is #
A research organization of roughly 60 people (62 listed on the team page as of 2026-11-07), whose public products are data explorers (AI Models with over 3,700 entries from 1950 to today, AI Data Centers, Chip sales, Chip owners, Companies, Polling, plus newer sets on cyber vulnerabilities, frontier-lab hiring, and ChatGPT usage), benchmarks (the Epoch Capabilities Index, FrontierMath, MirrorCode, EBR-bench, Epoch Automation Reports), papers and reports, short Data Insights, the Gradient Updates newsletter, and the Epoch After Hours podcast. FrontierMath itself has grown into a three-part program: Tiers 1-4, Open Problems, and FrontierMath Erdős, a set of Erdős problems formalized in Lean that opened in August 2026. Data is free to use with attribution under Creative Commons (CC BY), and a Python client library and data repositories live on its GitHub org. Its numbers are the citation of record for AI trend claims, used by Our World in Data, government AI-safety reports, and the financial press.
Status #
Actively maintained at near-daily granularity: the data page’s dataset stamps ran through Nov. 7, 2026 as of 2026-11-07 (the capabilities-and-benchmarking, cyber-vulnerability, and frontier-lab-hiring sets refreshed that day, the AI-models ZIP Nov. 6, with the AI-models explorer now reading over 3,700 models), its GitHub repositories show pushes as recent as 2026-11-05 across 40 public repositories, and the site keeps publishing (the newest items the Nov. 6 report on Huawei’s Horinger data center and China’s compute gap, the Nov. 4 Bayesian rebuild of the Epoch Capabilities Index methodology, and the Nov. 4 Broadcom TPU shipments data insight, after the Oct. 29 report on open-weight models turning security fixes into exploits). HN traction is substantial and recurring: the FrontierMath launch drew 185 points in 2024, “FrontierMath was funded by OpenAI” drew 483 points in January 2025, and “Epoch confirms GPT5.4 Pro solved a frontier math open problem” drew 480 points in March 2026. Founded by Jaime Sevilla and collaborators; funding is donations (Coefficient Giving grants of $8.5M in April 2025, $4.13M in 2024, and $2.74M in March 2026 for the Public Data Center Tracker, plus the Survival and Flourishing Fund, Jaan Tallinn, Schmidt Sciences, Sentinel Bio, and the individual donors the transparency page itemizes above $70,000, Girish Sastry, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Likith Govindaiah, and Carl Shulman as of 2026-11-07), with paid consultations disclosed on the transparency page.
Strengths #
- The most checkable actor in the category: funders, grants, and paid consultations (OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Anthropic, xAI, the EU AI Office, METR, and others) are named on one page.
- CC BY data plus a Python client means their series can go straight into your own analysis instead of a screenshot.
- Coverage spans hardware, data centers, and companies, not just model leaderboards, which is where the multi-year questions live.
Cautions #
- The FrontierMath funding controversy is the load test it had to pass: TechCrunch reported in January 2025 that Epoch “didn’t disclose that it had received funding from OpenAI” while developing a benchmark OpenAI’s models were scored on.
- Its response was structural (full disclosure plus a 2026 FrontierMath data audit), but the structural tension remains: the labs it benchmarks are also its consulting clients and neighbors in the funding ecosystem.
- Trend series are backward-looking; nothing here tells you which provider to buy this week.
Pricing #
Free: a donation-funded nonprofit whose data is CC BY licensed. It sells consultations and custom research to organizations, with no public price list. No reader-facing price is stated, so no price history applies.
Compared to #
- Artificial Analysis: live model-versus-model comparisons; Epoch answers the multi-year questions those snapshots sit inside.
- AI Release Tracker: the raw release stream; Epoch’s model dataset is the curated, parameterized version of the same history.
- Stanford HAI’s AI Index: a single annual curated report; Epoch is continuous and downloadable.
Bottom line #
Recommended for anyone who needs to cite how fast AI capability, compute, or cost is moving, with the data behind the number, not for weekly model selection. My disagreeable claim: the FrontierMath episode made Epoch more trustworthy, not less, because it is the only member of this category that responded to a conflict-of-interest scandal by publishing an itemized funder and client list, and none of its commercial peers has matched that.
Changes #
- 2026-09-24 - Created.
- 2026-09-27 - Data-page stamp refreshed to “Updated Sep. 27, 2026”.
- 2026-09-29 - Data-page stamp refreshed to “Updated Sep. 29, 2026”.
- 2026-10-16 - Rotation re-verification with every cited URL re-fetched live: recorded the 2026 Coefficient Giving grants ($2.74M in March for the Public Data Center Tracker, $600k in July), the team’s growth to 57 listed people, FrontierMath’s expansion into a three-part program (Tiers 1-4, Open Problems, and the Lean-formalized Erdős set), the newer datasets (cyber vulnerabilities, frontier-lab hiring, ChatGPT usage), and data-page stamps through Oct. 16.
- 2026-10-25 - Rotation re-verification with every cited URL re-fetched live: the team page now lists 59 people, the transparency page’s consultation list visibly includes Anthropic, xAI, and METR alongside OpenAI, DeepMind, and the EU AI Office, data-page stamps run through Oct. 25 (capabilities-and-benchmarking, cyber vulnerabilities, and frontier-lab hiring refreshed that day), GitHub pushes run through Oct. 24, and the newest publication is the Oct. 16 Data Insight on the open-closed cyber gap.
- 2026-11-07 - Rotation re-verification with every cited URL re-fetched live: the team page lists 62 people (from 59), the AI-models explorer reads over 3,700 models (from over 3,600), data-page stamps run through Nov. 7 (capabilities-and-benchmarking, cyber vulnerabilities, and frontier-lab hiring refreshed that day, the AI-models ZIP Nov. 6), GitHub pushes run through Nov. 5 across 40 repositories, the newest publications are the Nov. 6 Huawei Horinger compute-gap report and the Nov. 4 Bayesian rebuild of the Epoch Capabilities Index methodology, and the transparency page now itemizes individual donors above $70,000 (Girish Sastry, Leopold Aschenbrenner, Likith Govindaiah, Carl Shulman) with the consultation list unchanged.
See also #
- Artificial Analysis - the present-tense measurement layer above Epoch’s trend lines
- AI Release Tracker - the raw release stream behind the model dataset
- LMArena - preference-based ranking, the opposite timescale of an Epoch series
- Trackers and Leaderboards Feature Matrix - the category comparison this note joins
References #
https://epoch.ai/ - homepage: tagline, 3,200+ model dataset, product map, update stamps (fetched 200, 2026-09-24; re-fetched 200, 2026-10-25, newest item the Oct. 16 Data Insight; re-fetched 200, 2026-11-07, newest items the Nov. 6 Horinger report and the Nov. 4 ECI methodology update, data stamps Nov. 6-7)
https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/19/ai-benchmarking-organization-criticized-for-waiting-to-disclose-funding-from-openai/ - the funding-disclosure controversy (fetched 200, 2026-09-24; re-fetched 200, 2026-10-25, live; re-fetched 200, 2026-11-07, live)
https://github.com/epoch-research - active data and benchmark repositories (re-fetched via API, 2026-10-25, pushes through Oct. 24, 39 repositories; re-fetched via API, 2026-11-07, pushes through Nov. 5, 40 repositories)
https://epochai.substack.com/ - the Gradient Updates newsletter (fetched 200, 2026-09-24; re-fetched 200, 2026-10-25, live; re-fetched 200, 2026-11-07, live)