MiniMax M2.5: Another Strong Open-Weight Entrant
MiniMax M2.5 entered the open-weight rankings in February 2026 with a Quality Index of 41.97 — competitive with DeepSeek V3.2 and a sign that the field of serious open-weight frontier models is broadening fast.
A pattern is emerging in early 2026: every few weeks, a new open-weight model arrives that's genuinely competitive with models that cost $15+ per million tokens to access via API. MiniMax M2.5 is the latest.
MiniMax is a Shanghai-based AI lab that's been building quietly. M2.5 is their most capable public release and the first to place competitively on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index.
The Numbers
Quality Index: 41.97 — places M2.5 in the same tier as DeepSeek V3.2 (41.28) and just below Kimi K2.5 Thinking (46.73) and GLM-5 (49.64).
That's a real result. It means M2.5 is a legitimate option alongside the established open-weight leaders, not a "good for its size" consolation ranking.
Specific strengths at launch:
- Competitive on general reasoning and instruction following
- Strong Chinese + English bilingual quality (consistent with other Chinese labs at this tier)
- Open weights available for self-hosting
How It Compares at Launch
| Model | QI Score | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GLM-5 (Reasoning) | 49.64 | Current open-weight #1 |
| Kimi K2.5 Thinking | 46.73 | Best math/reasoning open-weight |
| MiniMax M2.5 | 41.97 | New entrant, solid general quality |
| DeepSeek V3.2 | 41.28 | Best coding in this tier |
| MiMo-V2-Flash (Xiaomi) | 41.42 | Speed-focused |
M2.5 and DeepSeek V3.2 are essentially tied on the QI. Task-specific benchmarks will determine which is better for a given use case.
Best For
- Teams exploring the open-weight frontier beyond the established names (DeepSeek, Qwen)
- Bilingual Chinese + English applications
- Self-hosted deployments where you want to benchmark multiple options
Not For
- Pushing the absolute open-weight ceiling — GLM-5 and Kimi K2.5 Thinking score higher
- Agentic coding — still a closed-model story (Claude)
- Teams that need detailed, independently verified benchmarks before deploying — it's early
Verdict
MiniMax M2.5 is a legitimate entrant, not a novelty. The broader point: as of February 2026, there are now at least five open-weight models (GLM-5, Kimi K2.5, M2.5, DeepSeek V3.2, Qwen 3.5) that are genuinely competitive for production use cases. The open-weight vs. closed-source gap has shrunk to the point where self-hosting is a real decision, not a research project.
Part of our Model Watch series. See also: GLM-5 → · Kimi K2.5 Thinking →