Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model • Hacker News Board

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#101

Post by torginus » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 6:43 PM UTC

tevon wrote: post #70

This has to be fake... or similar. Their CMO's bio lists "20,000 'qualified' quantum AI contacts on linkedin" as the SECOND line in his bio. "Business Management by ESADE. Co-Founder and CMO of Multiverse Computing. President, “barcelonaqbit-bqb”, 20,000 “qualified” quantum AI contacts on LinkedIn. VP of the AMETIC Innovation..."

Isn't this standard in Europe? There exists a layer of well-connected and impenetrable managerial class, shielded by a glass ceiling. The entire company is BS, and they use some folks with clout and credentials to access grants and handouts (or whatever inscrutable financial reasons). They often sell products to each others' companies or big Euro vendors.

Even if this fits the spirit of corruption, I'm not sure it fits the spirit of it. They certainly aren't there to build a product or provide valuable expertise, but taxes and salaries are paid, people go to conferences, they might even build something, but its a giant LARP. Don't expect to get rewarded or recognized for solid engineering.

I'm sure if you worked for a mid-sized Euro firm, you know what I'm talking about.

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#102

Post by ande-mnoc » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

neya wrote: post #96

pu_pe wrote: post #56

The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. From their about page: > At the heart of Multiverse's platform is CompactifAI, a compression technology that applies tensor networks, a mathematical framework from quantum physics, to the problem of AI model compression. This application was pioneered by co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Román Orús and reduces the size of large language models by up to 80-95…

> The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. When they make being from Europe their whole personality, that shows how little value there is to the actual value proposition.

I instinctively distrust any company that makes their national origin the main selling point. To me that's a subtle signal that they cannot compete on technical merit.

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#103

Post by antoineMoPa » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

ande-mnoc wrote: post #102

neya wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. When they make being from Europe their whole personality, that shows how little value there is to the actual value proposition.

I instinctively distrust any company that makes their national origin the main selling point. To me that's a subtle signal that they cannot compete on technical merit.

I mean, yes, but some governments may be tied to using European alternatives by regulations and some individuals may prefer not relying on US / China models for various reasons (could be political / personal preferences).

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#104

Post by neya » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 6:57 PM UTC

ande-mnoc wrote: post #102

neya wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. When they make being from Europe their whole personality, that shows how little value there is to the actual value proposition.

I instinctively distrust any company that makes their national origin the main selling point. To me that's a subtle signal that they cannot compete on technical merit.

This is a universal problem, interesting enough especially you'll notice that in the automotive sectors a lot. Crappy local automakers pull the nationality card because they can't compete on real engineering.

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#105

Post by localtoast » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 8:07 PM UTC

pu_pe wrote: post #56

The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. From their about page: > At the heart of Multiverse's platform is CompactifAI, a compression technology that applies tensor networks, a mathematical framework from quantum physics, to the problem of AI model compression. This application was pioneered by co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Román Orús and reduces the size of large language models by up to 80-95…

Not understanding that "up to" is not a range sends me spiralling.

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#106

Post by scrollaway » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 9:11 PM UTC

pu_pe wrote: post #56

The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. From their about page: > At the heart of Multiverse's platform is CompactifAI, a compression technology that applies tensor networks, a mathematical framework from quantum physics, to the problem of AI model compression. This application was pioneered by co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Román Orús and reduces the size of large language models by up to 80-95…

Just because you haven’t heard of them and they’re not American doesn’t mean they’re hot air.

I got the privilege to meet their CEO in Paris as they were announcing their partnership with Axelera and we exchanged some stories. They are full of very smart people, and they got accepted in the EIC Accelerator which, while you may not have heard of it, is one of the most rigorous and difficult programs to get into as a startup (far more difficult than YC which nowadays accepts any vague AI trash and always shoots wide).

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#107

Post by scrollaway » Wed, Sep 02, 2026, 9:12 PM UTC

m00dy wrote: post #82

pu_pe wrote: post #56

The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. From their about page: > At the heart of Multiverse's platform is CompactifAI, a compression technology that applies tensor networks, a mathematical framework from quantum physics, to the problem of AI model compression. This application was pioneered by co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Román Orús and reduces the size of large language models by up to 80-95…

looks like someone is looking for EU funding :D

This isn’t how it works. You don’t just get eu funding because you say “yay go EU we’re European”.

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#108

Post by icepush » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 12:37 AM UTC

neya wrote: post #96

pu_pe wrote: post #56

The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. From their about page: > At the heart of Multiverse's platform is CompactifAI, a compression technology that applies tensor networks, a mathematical framework from quantum physics, to the problem of AI model compression. This application was pioneered by co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Román Orús and reduces the size of large language models by up to 80-95…

> The company sounds like a bunch of hot air to me. When they make being from Europe their whole personality, that shows how little value there is to the actual value proposition.

On the flipside imagine if Europe could be a genuinely competitive continent again. I don’t expect it to happen in my lifetime - but if it could, the benefits to the consumer would be enormous.

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#109

Post by spindump8930 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:41 AM UTC

fantyoon wrote: post #58

I might be misreading this. But they seem to heavily imply that they trained this model. Or at least want to give off the impression that that is the case. Otherwise the "Europe's Leading Model" line doesn't make much sense. Their bread and butter is to remove parameters from models [1] and I think this is GLM 5.2 with parameters removed. Its advertised in their changelog [2] as "capabilities are identical to GLM 5.2…

On Artificial Analysis it's listed as "Quasar 438B (max, based on GLM-5.2)" - so you see exactly right. Not sure if this was changed post publicity drive or not, this is the first I'm seeing about this model.

https://artificialanalysis.ai/models/quasar-438b

Re: Quasar 438B: Europe's Leading AI Model

#110

Post by walrus01 » Thu, Sep 03, 2026, 2:51 AM UTC

torginus wrote: post #100

walrus01 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual Indians are very much present in companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. I have a theory that the top 5% talent of Indian nationals who are legitimately qualified and skilled, for very logical reasons would much rather take a six-figure USD equivalent salary in EUR or USD and enjoy the lifestyle benefits that come with it rather than bootstrap an Indian domestic AI lab.

It's not like people in other places couldn't solve this problem. Yes, the US pays more, but a lot of people would still prefer staying home, and it's not like they wouldn't be paid very well compared to the local salary. And besides, a lot of Indians in India are working for FAANG, and don't earn US money - I'm not sure why it wouldn't make sense for some of these talented engineers to work for an indigenous tech co…

> I'm not sure why it wouldn't make sense for some of these talented engineers to work for an indigenous tech company.

India doesn't have the same structure, existence and prevalence of VCs with large pools of available seed round and series A money that are necessary for a start-up to acquire enough funds to realistically train a model. Particularly with the hardware/datacenter costs involved in that. There's a reason why a huge number of motivated and talented Indian people form companies outside of India.