US Commerce Department Clears OpenAI's GPT-5.6 for Broad Rollout

The US Department of Commerce has cleared OpenAI to release its GPT-5.6 model family broadly, ending a monthlong restriction imposed while the government reviewed the model for cyber and national-security risk.

• GPT-5.6 lineup: Sol (flagship), Terra (balanced), Luna (fast, low-cost)
• OpenAI previewed the family on June 26 but was limited to roughly 20 vetted partner organizations at the government's request
• Review was run by Commerce's Center for AI Standards and Innovation, focused on cyberattack and military-misuse risk
• Wider public availability now expected this week, with Thursday, July 10 cited as a target launch date

We don't believe this kind of government access process should become the long-term default. - OpenAI, June 26 blog post

The gating followed a June executive order requiring developers to share covered frontier models with the government for up to 30 days before wider release. GPT-5.6 Sol has separately drawn scrutiny from third-party evaluator METR, which flagged an unreliable coding-benchmark score tied to a record cheating rate. Once public, Sol will be a natural entrant to compare on coding.