Claude Opus 4.6 & GPT 5.3 Codex: benchmark performance

February 10, 2026

Hey there!

Welcome back to The Pulse, where we dive into interesting AI stories and trends backed by data, all presented through simple visuals.

> Anthropic & OpenAI release Opus 4.6 & GPT-5.3 Codex (on the same day)

> Opus 4.6 highlights:

  • adaptive thinking + four user selectable effort levels

  • context compaction: summarizes older context when limits are reached

  • multi-agent teams within a single workflow that work in parallel as a team & coordinate autonomously

  • native PowerPoint & Excel integrations so model operates directly inside Office documents

  • 1M context window with highest scores on HLE & ARC-AGI-2

> 5.3 Codex highlights:

  • 25% faster inference vs prior Codex; co-designed for NVIDIA GB200 systems

  • self-training: first meaningfully used to build & refine itself

  • ~50% fewer tokens for same accuracy

  • first OpenAI model classified as “high capability” for cybersecurity tasks

  • leads Terminal-Bench 2.0 with strong computer-use ability (on OSWorld verified)

> users like both for many purposes:

  • Opus 4.6 → deep reasoning, long context, agent coordination

  • Codex 5.3 → speed, coding, computer use

> AI / GPU share continues expanding within total capex as almost $700B spend expected this year

> hyperscaler capex growth largely due to memory price inflation; top 10 datacenter memory spend rises $107B (2025) → $237B (2026)

> $130B increase accounts for 45% of capex growth; excluding memory, capex growth slows to 40% this year vs 80% in 2025

> $1T wiped off combined market caps in reaction to news of $120B capex in Q4 alone

> 2025 capex total was $381B, while this year's high-end guidance reaches $665B (74% YoY)

> Amazon to go FCF-negative this year; Alphabet & Meta expect 90% drop, while Microsoft expects -28% FCF

> Alphabet long-term debt also 4x-ed to $46.5B after $25B bond sale, causing worry for the market

> AI companies dominate top-5 by amount raised: OpenAI, SpaceX/xAI, Anthropic, Waymo, Databricks

> SpaceX / xAI joint entity moves to #1 post-merger

> Waymo newest entrant in 2026 following $16B funding round

> Anthropic: reported $35B raise at $350B valuation; OpenAI: expected $100B funding round

> current total funding across chart at $230B - $260B

> ~500 AI unicorns globally (Dec ’25); AI now largest source of new US unicorns