Rio AI Model "Rio-3.5-Open-397B" Faces Ownership Claim

Rio de Janeiro's municipal IT company, IplanRIO, released an AI model called Rio-3.5-Open-397B. However, another company, Nex-AGI, claims this model is not original. Here's the thing: Nex-AGI published evidence suggesting Rio-3.5-Open-397B is a blend of their Nex-N2-Pro model and Alibaba's Qwen 3.5. They found that approximately 60% of the Rio model's parameters match Nex-N2-Pro and 40% match Qwen 3.5. What's interesting is that when the custom prompt is removed, the Rio model reportedly identifies itself as "Nex, from Nex-AGI" in 79% of responses. IplanRIO has not yet issued a formal rebuttal. The bottom line: This situation highlights the importance of independent verification for AI models, especially those released by public institutions, to ensure transparency and trust.