# Sapient trains 1B-parameter foundation model from scratch for about $1,500

_Wednesday, June 10, 2026 at 5:52 PM EDT · AI · Latest · Tier 2 — Notable_

![Sapient trains 1B-parameter foundation model from scratch for about $1,500 — VentureBeat](https://images.ctfassets.net/jdtwqhzvc2n1/5f6OtV35BgTCDXmJgbnBa1/c9938db9c42cfa72001085087e5dc003/HRM.jpg?w=800&q=75)

Researchers at Sapient trained a 1B-parameter language model from scratch for about $1,500, VentureBeat reported. The model, HRM-Text, replaces standard Transformers with a Hierarchical Recurrent Model that decouples computation into slow-evolving strategic and fast-evolving execution layers, and trains exclusively on instruction-response pairs instead of next-token prediction over raw web text.

Sapient said the model achieved performance competitive with much larger open models on key industry benchmarks, at a fraction of the cost and tokens of normal LLMs.

"Enterprises today face three compounding problems: training is expensive, infrastructure is heavy, and experimentation cycles are too slow," Sapient Intelligence CEO Guan Wang said.

## Sources

- [VentureBeat](https://venturebeat.com/technology/researchers-say-they-trained-a-foundation-model-from-scratch-for-about-1-500)

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Retrieved: 2026-06-11T03:14:44.195Z
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