K2-Think: A Parameter-Efficient Reasoning System
On the map: LLM reasoning → Test-time compute and efficient thinking
Abstract (arXiv)
K2-Think is a reasoning system that achieves state-of-the-art performance with a 32B parameter model, matching or surpassing much larger models like GPT-OSS 120B and DeepSeek v3.1. Built on the Qwen2.5 base model, our system shows that smaller models can compete at the highest levels by combining advanced post-training and test-time computation techniques. The approach is based on six key technical pillars: Long Chain-of-thought Supervised Finetuning, Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVR), Agentic planning prior to reasoning, Test-time Scaling, Speculative Decoding, and Inference-optimized Hardware, all using publicly available open-source datasets. K2-Think excels in mathematical reasoning, achieving state-of-the-art scores on public benchmarks for open-source models, while also performing strongly in other areas such as Code and Science. Our results confirm that a more parameter-efficient model like K2-Think 32B can compete with state-of-the-art systems through an integrated post-training recipe that includes long chain-of-thought training and strategic inference-time enhancements, making open-source reasoning systems more accessible and affordable. K2-Think is freely available at k2think.ai, offering best-in-class inference speeds of over 2,000 tokens per second per request via the Cerebras Wafer-Scale Engine.
Key facts. Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Test-time compute and efficient thinking, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 78 of its 98 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Sep 2025.
Builds on
78 of 98 references.
Closest ancestors · 5
Same direction, newest first
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- 2025LIFT the Veil for the Truth: Principal Weights Emerge after Rank Reduction for Reasoning-Focused Supervised Fine-Tuning1 Jun
- 2025Towards Thinking-Optimal Scaling of Test-Time Compute for LLM Reasoning25 Feb
- 2025s1: Simple test-time scaling31 Jan
Other references · 73
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- 2025Qwen3 Technical Reportcited by 8,820
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- 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,708
- 2024Qwen2.5 Technical Reportcited by 4,942
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- 2023"Do Anything Now": Characterizing and Evaluating In-The-Wild Jailbreak Prompts on Large Language Modelscited by 489
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50 most cited of 73 All 73 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 5; 2026: 6.
11 papers.
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- 2025Reasoning's Razor: Reasoning Improves Accuracy but Can Hurt Recall at Critical Operating Points in Safety and Hallucination Detectioncited by 3
- 2025K2-V2: A 360-Open, Reasoning-Enhanced LLMcited by 3
- 2026XL-SafetyBench: A Country-Grounded Cross-Cultural Benchmark for LLM Safety and Cultural Sensitivitycited by 2
- 2026Group Pattern Selection Optimization: Let LRMs Pick the Right Pattern for Reasoningcited by 1
- 2026Themis: Training Robust Multilingual Code Reward Models for Flexible Multi-Criteria Scoringcited by 1
- 2026One More Turn, Less Regret: A Regret-Based Multi-Turn Benchmark for LLMs' Clarification Policiescited by 1
- 2026One More Turn, Less Regret: A Regret-Based Multi-Turn Benchmark for LLMs' Clarification Policies23 Jul 2026
- 2026XL-SafetyBench: A Country-Grounded Cross-Cultural Benchmark for LLM Safety and Cultural Sensitivity7 May 2026
- 2026Themis: Training Robust Multilingual Code Reward Models for Flexible Multi-Criteria Scoring1 May 2026
- 2026Neural Theorem Proving for Verification Conditions: A Real-World Benchmark26 Jan 2026
- 2026Group Pattern Selection Optimization: Let LRMs Pick the Right Pattern for Reasoning12 Jan 2026
- 2026Learning to Simulate Human Dialogue7 Jan 2026
- 2025K2-V2: A 360-Open, Reasoning-Enhanced LLM5 Dec 2025
- 2025Reasoning's Razor: Reasoning Improves Accuracy but Can Hurt Recall at Critical Operating Points in Safety and Hallucination Detection23 Oct 2025
- 2025Are Large Reasoning Models Interruptible?13 Oct 2025
- 2025DRPO: Efficient Reasoning via Decoupled Reward Policy Optimization6 Oct 2025
- 2025Best-of-∞ -- Asymptotic Performance of Test-Time LLM Ensembling25 Sep 2025
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