Updates

Sep 4, 2026 Deriva-1, Update 2: rebuilding around the data Two weeks into Deriva-0.4 and 0.5: an overthinking problem the base model won't give up, a wider and more diverse training mix, the removal of OMEGA reasoning, and an early look at Deriva-0.6. Models Aug 28, 2026 Hikaru-1, Update 2: thirty runs of ERL Three months and more than thirty ERL runs: grader poisoning, thin episode data, and the rethink that moved explanations out of the weights and into retries. All internal, nothing released. Models Aug 28, 2026 Verplex is cancelled We are stopping work on the Verplex smart glasses and moving that time into our AI models and research. A deliberate scope decision, not a door closed for good. Community Aug 26, 2026 Kova Update-1: internal beta begins Kova has entered internal beta: good enough for daily use, still rough around the edges, and tested under tighter restrictions across a wide range of models. Software Aug 26, 2026 Deriva-1, Update 1: fixing what the base model got wrong A month into Deriva-1: why we chose SFT over ERL and Qwen3.8-27B as our base, an early hallucination spike, and the reasoning-mode and censorship issues Deriva-0.3 and 0.4 fix. Models Aug 20, 2026 Deriva-1 in development Deriva-1, now our lead priority, is an extensive finetune of Qwen3.8-27B targeting overthinking and censorship, with an experimental OMEGA reasoning mode. Models Aug 20, 2026 Evaluating scope Too many projects at once slowed everything down. We set a clear order of priority: Kova, then Deriva-1, then Hikaru-1, then PICO-1, and explain why. Community Aug 13, 2026 PICO-1 enters development Sential Innovations begins development on PICO-1, our custom text-to-speech model, tuned for CPU first and built around a low-latency streaming buffer. Models Aug 12, 2026 Hikaru-1, Update 1: reassessing the base model We're pausing to address scope and integrity. After testing 40+ candidate base models, Ministral-3 (8B) replaces IBM Granite 4.1 as the foundation for Hikaru-1.1 through 1.9. Models Jul 6, 2026 Building in the open Our site is now public. A plain note on Sential Innovations, an artificial intelligence company, and how to read the honest status labels across the site. Community Jun 16, 2026 Hikaru-1 enters development Work begins on our first model, a finetune of IBM Granite 4.1 (8B) trained with Explanatory Reinforcement Learning. The first real test of our central research direction. Models