AI platform OpenRouterAI has quietly released a large-language model dubbed “Cypher Alpha,” offering it free of charge to developers and researchers. The general-purpose system supports built-in tool calling, can process up to 1 million tokens of context and generate as many as 10,000 tokens per response, according to technical details published alongside the launch. OpenRouterAI describes the release as a “stealth” model and warns that user prompts and completions will be logged and may be used for further training. The company did not name the developer behind Cypher Alpha, fueling industry speculation that it could be an unreleased OpenAI or open-source model. OpenRouterAI’s previous stealth rollout, GPT-4.1, was later linked to OpenAI. The surprise debut intensifies competition in large-context AI systems, an area led by OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude series. By waiving usage fees, OpenRouterAI may attract startups and researchers seeking to build applications that require analyzing lengthy documents or codebases while the broader market awaits confirmed details on the model’s provenance.