{ "register": "The Orion Register", "subject": "IOTA, Bittensor subnet 9, every Orion training run with its numbers", "compiled_by": "Mikyö Clark, from Macrocosmos's published record. Not affiliated.", "updated": "2026-09-29", "labels": { "stated": "Macrocosmos said it, in the source given", "verified": "checked against the code, the chain, or a live page on the date given", "secondhand": "reported by someone else; not yet said by Macrocosmos in writing", "inferred": "reasoned from stated facts; the reasoning is given", "unknown": "the published record does not fill this cell" }, "rule": "A run is added when it ends. Every cell is filled or marked unknown. Pilots are added only if Macrocosmos publishes them.", "corrections": "connect@mikyo.one", "runs": [ { "run": "Orion-100B", "status": {"value": "ended; a viability run, stopped at 1.1B tokens on cost grounds", "label": "stated", "source": "Macrocosmos on X, 25 Sep 2026: 'It ran as a viability proof rather than to a finished model, and it held.'"}, "announced": {"value": "2026-06-01", "label": "stated", "source": "substack"}, "run_dates": {"value": "about two days; calendar dates not published; May 2026 by the essay's own timeline", "label": "inferred"}, "parameters_b": {"value": 100, "label": "stated"}, "architecture": {"value": "modified Llama 3.2 family, 90 transformer blocks", "label": "stated"}, "hardware": {"value": "48 Nvidia A100 80GB, one per peer, non-colocated, across five datacenters in the United States, several providers", "label": "stated"}, "network": {"value": "median upload 856 Mbps, download 1322 Mbps", "label": "stated"}, "pipeline": {"value": "16 stages, 3 replicas", "label": "stated"}, "replica_size_gpus": {"value": 16, "label": "stated"}, "inner_steps": {"value": 10, "label": "stated"}, "tokens_trained_b": {"value": 1.1, "label": "stated"}, "throughput_tokens_per_s": {"value": 9000, "label": "stated"}, "mfu_avg_pct": {"value": 30.8, "label": "stated"}, "mfu_peak_pct": {"value": 38, "note": "sustained over six hours without churn", "label": "stated"}, "speed_vs_colocated_pct": {"value": 65, "peak": 82, "label": "stated"}, "phase_minutes": {"training": 100.2, "synchronization": 22.2, "label": "stated"}, "training_utilization_pct": {"value": 81.8, "label": "stated"}, "activation_compression": {"value": "ResBM, 64x; per-stage transfer 140.6 MB to 2.2 MB", "label": "stated"}, "cost_per_replica_hour_usd": {"value": 20, "basis": "16 A100s at about $1.25 an hour", "label": "stated"}, "cost_per_run_hour_usd": {"value": 60, "basis": "48 A100s at $1.25; arithmetic on stated figures", "label": "inferred"}, "churn": {"value": "peak measured without churn; bandwidth-limited peers slowed weight uploads and the run continued; event count not published", "label": "stated"}, "dataset": {"value": "fineweb-edu-score-2", "label": "stated"}, "checkpoint_available": {"value": false, "label": "verified", "note": "No public checkpoint found (Hugging Face and the IOTA site, 28 September)."}, "when": "Viability run · announced 1 Jun 2026", "entry_cost_vs_peer": {"value": "about 2.5x below a Covenant-class 8xB200 peer (about $50 an hour) per replica", "label": "stated", "source": "the 1 June write-up; the 25 September post says the same"}, "what_it_proved": "Pipeline-parallel pretraining at 100B scale across five US datacenters, one A100 per peer at about $1.25 an hour, at roughly two-thirds of co-located speed.", "sources": [ {"title": "Orion-100B: Distributed pretraining arrives at hundred-billion-parameter scale, Steffen Cruz, 1 Jun 2026", "url": "https://macrocosmosai.substack.com/p/orion-100b-distributed-pretraining"}, {"title": "IOTA on X, 24 Sep 2026 (five datacenters, MFU, speed)", "url": "https://x.com/IOTA_SN9/status/2103175140699934764"}, {"title": "Macrocosmos on X, 25 Sep 2026 (replica cost, viability proof)", "url": "https://x.com/MacrocosmosAI/status/2103537520558661976"} ] }, { "run": "Orion-16B, first run", "status": {"value": "finished; 'one finished model'", "label": "stated"}, "live_from": {"value": "2026-07-27", "label": "stated"}, "tokens_100b_passed": {"value": "2026-08-14", "label": "stated"}, "end_date": {"value": "before 2026-09-23; date not published", "label": "inferred"}, "parameters_b": {"value": 16, "label": "stated"}, "architecture": {"value": "Llama-3.2-16B, 44 layers, embedding 5120, context 2048, bf16", "label": "verified", "source": "IOTA dashboard, archived run 28265 (orion-16b-v8), run config read in a browser 2026-09-28", "url": "https://iota.macrocosmos.ai/dashboard/overview"}, "hardware": {"value": "a series: 256 heterogeneous GPUs at launch (2026-07-27); c.180+ (2026-08-05); 225 across three continents (2026-08-20); at the finish RTX 4090, RTX 5090, A100, L40S, A6000; permissionless providers", "label": "stated"}, "accessible_pool": {"value": "about 18 B200-equivalents at FP16", "label": "stated"}, "pipeline": {"value": "10 pipeline stages; replica count not published", "label": "verified", "source": "Macrocosmos on X, 27 Jul 2026; dashboard run config (10 pipeline splits)", "replicas": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}}, "tokens_trained_b": {"value": "more than 100 by 14 Aug", "label": "stated", "dashboard_archived_run": {"value": 219.05, "label": "verified", "source": "IOTA dashboard, archived run 28265 (orion-16b-v8), tokens tile read in a browser 2026-09-28"}}, "compute": {"value": "about 10^22 FLOPs by 14 Aug", "label": "stated"}, "throughput_tokens_per_s": {"value": 80000, "label": "stated"}, "mfu_avg_pct": {"value": 20, "label": "stated", "alternate": {"value": 24, "label": "secondhand", "source": "Subnet Summer live post from the Exploit stage, 28 Sep 2026; may refer to either 16B run"}}, "speed_vs_colocated_pct": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "cost_per_replica_hour_usd": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "churn": {"value": "nodes dropped, throughput swung, machines ran inconsistently; training carried on without direct intervention; event count not published", "label": "stated"}, "dataset": {"value": "fineweb-edu-2", "label": "verified", "source": "IOTA dashboard, archived run 28265 (orion-16b-v8), run config read in a browser 2026-09-28"}, "checkpoint_available": {"value": false, "label": "verified", "note": "No public checkpoint found (Hugging Face and the IOTA site, 28 September)."}, "gpus_series": [ {"date": "2026-07-27", "value": 256, "label": "stated", "source": "Macrocosmos on X, launch post"}, {"date": "2026-08-05", "value": "c.180+", "label": "stated", "source": "Deep Dive 2"}, {"date": "2026-08-20", "value": 225, "note": "three continents", "label": "stated", "source": "Steffen Cruz on X"} ], "compression": {"value": "bottleneck dimension 64", "label": "verified", "source": "IOTA dashboard, archived run 28265 (orion-16b-v8), run config read in a browser 2026-09-28"}, "what_it_proved": "A 16B run survives mixed hardware and node churn across continents with no reserved cluster anywhere in it.", "sources": [ {"title": "Macrocosmos on X, 27 Jul 2026 (launch: 16B, 256 GPUs, 10 pipeline stages)", "url": "https://x.com/MacrocosmosAI/status/2081791889674772618"}, {"title": "Deep Dive 2: The Technical Requirements for Liquid Training, Cruz and Cohen, 5 Aug 2026", "url": "https://macrocosmosai.substack.com/p/deep-dive-2-the-technical-requirements"}, {"title": "Steffen Cruz on X, 14 Aug 2026 (100B tokens)", "url": "https://x.com/macrocrux/status/2088298605912174989"}, {"title": "Steffen Cruz on X, 20 Aug 2026 (225 GPUs, three continents)", "url": "https://x.com/macrocrux/status/2090544176274223467"}, {"title": "Macrocosmos on X, 23 Sep 2026 (final: 80k tokens a second, about 20% MFU)", "url": "https://x.com/MacrocosmosAI/status/2102808976442458457"}, {"title": "The IOTA dashboard, archived run, read 28 Sep 2026", "url": "https://iota.macrocosmos.ai/dashboard/overview"} ] }, { "run": "Orion-16B, second run", "status": {"value": "training", "label": "stated"}, "seen_training": {"value": "2026-09-28", "label": "verified", "note": "on the IOTA dashboard; start date not published"}, "parameters_b": {"value": 16, "label": "stated"}, "hardware": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "tokens_trained_b": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "mfu_avg_pct": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "throughput_tokens_per_s": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "cost_per_replica_hour_usd": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "churn": {"value": null, "label": "unknown"}, "what_it_proved": "Nothing yet. The run is in progress.", "dashboard": {"value": "the IOTA dashboard lists this run as orion-16b-v9, 10 stages, 11 replicas", "label": "verified", "date": "2026-09-28", "url": "https://iota.macrocosmos.ai/dashboard/overview"}, "sources": [ {"title": "Subnet Summer on X, live from the Exploit stage, 28 Sep 2026", "url": "https://x.com/SubnetSummerTAO/status/2104591996459360637"}, {"title": "The IOTA dashboard, read 28 Sep 2026", "url": "https://iota.macrocosmos.ai/dashboard/overview"} ] } ], "earlier_runs": [ {"period": "June 2025", "what": "launch run: a 15B target model across 5 pipeline stages, permissionless; 'fell over almost immediately' under load and adversarial attacks", "label": "stated"}, {"period": "August 2025 to April 2026", "what": "the 1.5B, 3-layer testbed: more than 700 controlled experiments, almost 15 trillion tokens in total, throughput up about tenfold", "label": "stated"}, {"period": "April to May 2026", "heading": "67x in a month", "what": "model size up 67x and pipeline stages up 10x in a single month; more than 750 experiments in all, from 1.5B to 21B, before Orion-100B", "label": "stated"} ], "said_on_stage": { "session": "Project Orion: Introducing Liquid Training", "where": "OTF stage, Exploit Summit, Montreal", "when": "2026-09-28 10:50 local", "speakers": ["Will Squires", "Steffen Cruz"], "replay": {"value": "no full replay published; a 38-second highlight titled 'Announcing the Iota SDK and Liquid Compute Platform'", "url": "https://stream.vidaio.io/highlights/d1eaa7b9ebc6e77f433884f1c1ad2cfa", "label": "verified"}, "announced": {"value": "the iota SDK and Liquid Compute; Liquid Compute is 'our disaggregated compute platform'; the SDK 'powers any training workload across it, as if it were one cluster'; go-to-market 'in the coming weeks'; early access by registration", "label": "stated", "source": "Macrocosmos on X, about 15:30 local, 2026-09-28"}, "sdk": {"value": "'anyone can train models using globally distributed, heterogeneous and unreliable compute with just a few lines changed from pure PyTorch'; two years of R&D distilled into communication primitives", "label": "stated", "source": "Steffen Cruz on X, 2026-09-28"}, "cost_quotes": {"value": ["The most impressive thing about Orion-100B is the cost of doing it compared to colocated compute.", "We were able to train it 3x cheaper than if we had simply reserved a node in a data center and trained it there.", "That's because we can access the abundant compute that exists everywhere, in the corners of the world."], "speaker": "Steffen Cruz", "label": "secondhand", "source": "The TAO Daily on X with a 3:21 clip, 2026-09-28", "note": "the 1 June write-up puts entry cost per replica 2.5x below a Covenant-class 8xB200 peer; the 25 September post says the same"}, "numbers": {"value": {"tokens_trained_b": 100, "model_16b_mfu_pct": 24, "path": "through ResBM and ResBMoE toward 1T and 10T models", "companies_in_conversation": 164, "pilots": "expected to go live from October"}, "label": "secondhand", "source": "Subnet Summer on X, live from the stage, 2026-09-28", "note": "a 16B model at 24% MFU; Macrocosmos's 23 September post gave about 20% for the first run"}, "framing": {"value": ["GPUs around the world are sitting idle. Macrocosmos wants to put them to work training AI.", "bringing spare compute across different machines into AI training"], "label": "secondhand", "source": "Exploit Summit on X, 2026-09-28"}, "why_sdk": {"value": ["All of our published results to date are on the legacy code base.", "pre training is too small of a market, so we've broadened the focus to include many more standard workloads (RL, fine tuning and more)"], "speaker": "Will Squires", "label": "stated", "source": "Will Squires on X, 2026-09-28", "url": "https://x.com/WSquires/status/2104681373533679638"}, "rule": "A stage figure becomes a runs-table cell only when Macrocosmos publishes it.", "label_on_page": "not yet run data" }, "runs_table_excludes": ["the IOTA SDK", "Liquid Compute", "pilots", "the companies in conversation"] }