Reflection Beam on Ollama: 501B-Parameter Open-Weight MoE Model, Free for a Limited Time
Reflection released Beam, its first open-weight model, on October 16, 2026, and Ollama shipped it as a day-zero partner on Ollama Cloud — free for a limited time. The release matters because Beam is an Apache 2.0 mixture-of-experts model with roughly 501 billion total parameters, 23 billion active parameters per token, and a 1 million token context window, aimed squarely at software engineering and long-horizon agentic workloads rather than single-turn chat.
What was announced
Beam is Reflection's first open-weight model and became generally available on the morning of October 16, 2026. Ollama is a day-zero launch partner, making Beam available through Ollama Cloud at no cost for a limited promotional period.
Ollama's Beam endpoint runs with full zero data retention (ZDR) in collaboration with Reflection. Ollama Cloud lets developers run supported models from their apps or terminal without downloading models or managing local inference.
Model architecture and specifications
Beam is a mixture-of-experts model with approximately 501 billion total parameters and 23 billion active parameters per token. The gap between total and active parameters is the defining efficiency characteristic of a sparse MoE design: only a fraction of the network is engaged per token.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Total parameters | ~501 billion |
| Active parameters per token | 23 billion |
| Architecture | Mixture-of-experts |
| Context window | 1 million tokens |
| Input/output modality | Text-in, text-out |
| License | Apache 2.0 |
Beam's 1 million token context window is explicitly positioned to support long-running workflows. Its text-in, text-out design focuses on workloads where code, tool calls, logs, documents, and structured outputs are central.
What Beam is designed to do
Beam targets workflows that involve more than a single response — writing and maintaining code, using tools across multiple steps, and working through complex tasks over time. Ollama lists four primary workload categories:
- Coding agents: solving software engineering tasks, working through codebases, and helping write and maintain code.
- Long-running agents: executing multi-step workflows, using tools, and working toward a goal over an extended sequence of actions.
- Math and science reasoning: working through complex mathematical and scientific problems.
- Custom models: fine-tuning and customizing an open-weight model for specific applications.
Benchmarks
Ollama's announcement includes four benchmark charts covering agentic coding, reasoning, tool calling, and general performance. The blog post publishes these as images and does not state numeric scores in text, so no specific benchmark figures are available from this source.
How to run Beam
Beam is accessed through Ollama Cloud using the beam:cloud tag. Ollama directs users to download the latest version of Ollama first.
Run Beam directly:
ollama run beam:cloud
Launch it inside coding agents:
ollama launch claude --model beam:cloud
ollama launch codex --model beam:cloud
ollama launch opencode --model beam:cloud
Why the Apache 2.0 license matters
Beam is released under Apache 2.0, which gives developers the freedom to inspect, customize, and build on the model. Combined with the open-weight release, this permits fine-tuning for specific applications — a use case Ollama explicitly lists among Beam's intended workloads.
Key takeaways
- Reflection's Beam is the company's first open-weight model, generally available as of October 16, 2026.
- Beam is a mixture-of-experts model with ~501B total parameters and 23B active parameters per token.
- It offers a 1 million token context window and is text-in, text-out.
- It is released under Apache 2.0.
- Ollama is a day-zero partner offering Beam free for a limited time via Ollama Cloud, with full zero data retention.
- The model is positioned for coding agents, long-running agents, math and science reasoning, and fine-tuning into custom models.