IFM/K2-Horizon-7B

K2-Horizon-7B

K2-Horizon-7B is the medium dense member of the K2-Horizon family: a 7B-core decoder-only model with a 512K context window.

<p align="center"> <img src="assets/k2-horizon-7b-benchmarks.png" alt="K2-Horizon-7B benchmark results" width="100%"> </p>

K2-Horizon-7B Highlights

• —Strong dense baseline. A 7B-class dense model evaluated across agentic, coding, long-context, and reasoning benchmarks.
• —512K context. Native 524,288-token context from the midtraining stages onward.
• —Diffusion Adapters. For faster inference (HF).
• —Intermediate checkpoints. Intermediate checkpoints are released so capability changes can be studied across training rather than at a single checkpoint.
• —Fully open. Training data and recipe, training code, and evaluation resources are public.

Benchmark Results

The chart at the top of this card shows K2-Horizon-7B against selected reference models. The table below lists every comparison model used in the figure.

Full Results

<!-- TABLE:START --> <div style="font-family:-apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,'Segoe UI',Roboto,sans-serif;margin:0 auto;padding:8px 0 16px;overflow-x:auto"><table style="display:table;width:100%;table-layout:fixed;border-collapse:collapse;font-size:12px;margin:0"><thead><tr><th style="width:28%;border-bottom:none"></th><th style="border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.25)"></th><th colspan="3" style="padding:6px 4px 2px;text-align:center;font-size:11px;font-weight:600;letter-spacing:0.04em;text-transform:uppercase;opacity:0.65;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.25)">Reference models · weak to strong</th></tr><tr><th style="padding:10px 6px;text-align:left;border-bottom:2px solid #2450D6">Benchmark</th><th style="padding:10px 3px;text-align:center;font-weight:600;border-bottom:2px solid #2450D6;color:#2450D6;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08)">K2-Horizon-7B</th><th style="padding:10px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:2px solid #2450D6">Reference 1</th><th style="padding:10px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:2px solid #2450D6">Reference 2</th><th style="padding:10px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:2px solid #2450D6">Reference 3</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="5" style="padding:6px 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:12.5px;color:#2450D6;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(36,80,214,0.25);background:rgba(36,80,214,0.12)">Math</td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">HMMT Feb 2026</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Competition mathematics</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>73.3</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Gemma 4-12B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">63.1</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Qwen3.5-9B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">65.7</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Granite 4.2-8B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">66.5</div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="5" style="padding:6px 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:12.5px;color:#2450D6;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(36,80,214,0.25);background:rgba(36,80,214,0.12)">Coding</td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">SWE-bench Verified</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Software engineering</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>70.6</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Gemma 4-12B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">30.6</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Granite 4.2-8B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">47.7</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Qwen3.5-9B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">50.8</div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="5" style="padding:6px 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:12.5px;color:#2450D6;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(36,80,214,0.25);background:rgba(36,80,214,0.12)">Scientific Reasoning</td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">HLE</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Expert-level reasoning</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>18.6</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Granite 4.2-8B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">9.7</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Qwen3.5-9B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">14.9</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Gemma 4-12B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">15.7</div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="5" style="padding:6px 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:12.5px;color:#2450D6;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(36,80,214,0.25);background:rgba(36,80,214,0.12)">Coding</td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">SciCode</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Scientific coding</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>31.6</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Qwen3.5-9B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">27.5</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Mistral Small 4</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">28.0</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Granite 4.2-8B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">30.4</div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="5" style="padding:6px 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:12.5px;color:#2450D6;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(36,80,214,0.25);background:rgba(36,80,214,0.12)">General</td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">LCR</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Long-context reasoning</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>68.0</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Granite 4.2-8B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">43.3</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Gemma 4-12B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">61.7</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Qwen3.5-9B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">65.3</div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="5" style="padding:6px 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:12.5px;color:#2450D6;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(36,80,214,0.25);background:rgba(36,80,214,0.12)">Coding</td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">Terminal-Bench 2.1</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Agentic terminal use</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>39.1</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Granite 4.2-8B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">18.4</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Gemma 4-12B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">27.3</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Qwen3.5-9B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">29.2</div></td></tr><tr><td colspan="5" style="padding:6px 10px;font-weight:600;font-size:12.5px;color:#2450D6;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(36,80,214,0.25);background:rgba(36,80,214,0.12)">Agents</td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">tau3-Banking</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Agentic tool use</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>25.8</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Qwen3.5-9B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">7.0</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Granite 4.2-8B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">7.6</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">Muse Glimmer-30B</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">24.0</div></td></tr><tr><td style="padding:6px 4px 6px 10px;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle"><div style="font-size:12.5px;font-weight:600;line-height:1.2">BrowseComp</div><div style="margin-top:2px;font-size:10px;opacity:0.65">Web browsing</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;background:rgba(36,80,214,0.08);"><strong>59.0</strong></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">DeepSeek V4 Flash-0423</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">53.5</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">GPT-5</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">54.9</div></td><td style="padding:6px 3px;text-align:center;border-bottom:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,0.15);vertical-align:middle;font-size:12.5px;line-height:1.2;"><div style="font-size:10.5px;opacity:0.72;line-height:1.15">LongCat Flash Thinking-2601</div><div style="margin-top:3px;font-weight:600">56.6</div></td></tr></tbody></table></div> <!-- TABLE:END -->

Scores in %. Bold marks the best score in each row. BrowseComp: our model uses the Discard-all@95k context-length protocol proposed in the DeepSeek-V3.2 technical report; comparison models may use different harnesses.

Quickstart

Serving

vLLM, recipe at recipes.vllm.ai/IFM:

vllm serve IFM/K2-Horizon-7B \
  --trust-remote-code \
  --dtype bfloat16 \
  --tensor-parallel-size 1 \
  --reasoning-parser k2_horizon \
  --enable-auto-tool-choice \
  --tool-call-parser k2_horizon

Use an exact branch name from the inventory with vLLM's --revision option. For example, --revision pretrain_1100000 selects the final checkpoint of Pretraining, at step 1,100,000.

SGLang, this is the recipe validated in the SGLang K2 Horizon cookbook:

sglang serve \
  --model-path IFM/K2-Horizon-7B \
  --revision 30d38fecf8a609873ae73a617f5c714286e1f565 \
  --tp 1 \
  --dtype bfloat16 \
  --attention-backend fa3 \
  --reasoning-parser k2_horizon \
  --host 0.0.0.0 \
  --port 30000

API Usage

[!Tip] Recommended settings: reasoning_effort="high", temperature=1.0, top_p=0.95, and at least 32,768 output tokens. Reasoning depth is selected per request through chat_template_kwargs. Thinking is returned in reasoning_content and the answer in content.

from openai import OpenAI

client = OpenAI(base_url="http://localhost:30000/v1", api_key="EMPTY")
response = client.chat.completions.create(
    model="IFM/K2-Horizon-7B",
    messages=[{"role": "user", "content": "Explain the result step by step."}],
    temperature=1.0,
    top_p=0.95,
    max_tokens=32768,
    extra_body={"chat_template_kwargs": {"reasoning_effort": "high", "tool_call_format": "xml"}},
)
message = response.choices[0].message
print("Reasoning:", getattr(message, "reasoning_content", None))
print("Answer:", message.content)

Our model supports multiple tool-call formats, which can be changed with chat_template_kwargs. The supported values are json, xml, and xml_typed. The default is xml. Keep --tool-call-parser k2_horizon enabled to parse the selected format.

Transformers

Validated with Transformers 5.15.0, PyTorch 2.13.0, Safetensors 0.8.0.

from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM, AutoTokenizer

model_id = "IFM/K2-Horizon-7B"
tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_id, trust_remote_code=True)
model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
    model_id, device_map="auto", dtype="bfloat16", low_cpu_mem_usage=True, trust_remote_code=True
)

inputs = tokenizer("Explain why long-context evaluation is difficult.", return_tensors="pt").to(model.device)
inputs.pop("token_type_ids", None)
outputs = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=32768, temperature=1.0, top_p=0.95, do_sample=True)
print(tokenizer.decode(outputs[0], skip_special_tokens=True))

Training Overview

The table below lists the training stages in order and the purpose of each stage.

Training steps are counted within each stage or phase. Token budgets cover only the additional training in that stage or phase. For example, the 50B tokens listed for SFT Phase 2 are additional to the 219B tokens in Phase 1, bringing the cumulative budget to 269B tokens by the end of Phase 2. Here, B and T denote billion and trillion tokens, respectively.

Each stage or phase continues from the final checkpoint of the preceding stage or phase.

Some stages, such as SFT, have multiple phases with slight changes to the data mix while retaining the same overall purpose. During RL, training branches into multiple expert models, which are then merged, as described below.

Release Artifacts

The tables below list the release artifacts for K2-Horizon-7B, their availability, and the expected release dates for remaining items.

Last updated: 2026-09-11

Status:

• —Available — fully released for the scope listed;
• —Partial — some items are available, with remaining items listed in the notes;
• —In Progress — being prepared for release but not yet available.

Artifact Index

Checkpoint Inventory

Model repository: IFM/K2-Horizon-7B

Branch names below refer to this repository. Patterns containing * group branches by training stage or phase. The * is a placeholder for a training-step number, not a literal branch name. Intermediate checkpoint groups exclude the final checkpoint listed separately; a pattern does not imply that a checkpoint is available at every step.

For example, sft_1_10000 is the checkpoint saved at training step 10,000 within SFT Phase 1, and is the final checkpoint of that phase. The numeric suffix is the step within the named stage or phase, not the cumulative step across all training. Thus, sft_2_2500 refers to step 2,500 within SFT Phase 2.

For a partially released group, the available checkpoints and the remaining checkpoints are listed in the notes.

Best Practices

1. 1.Reasoning effort: always `high`. All reported results use high reasoning effort. Pass {"chat_template_kwargs": {"reasoning_effort": "high"}} on every request; medium and low trade accuracy for speed and are not recommended for evaluation.
2. 2.Sampling parameters. temperature=1.0, top_p=0.95.
3. 3.Output length. Allow at least 32,768 output tokens so reasoning is never cut off. Truncated reasoning is a failed response, not a shorter one.
4. 4.Serving. Use the validated SGLang recipe above: BF16, TP=1, FlashAttention-3. Full recipes for every K2-Horizon size, with measured H200 latency and throughput, are in the SGLang cookbook.
5. 5.Parsers. Enable the k2_horizon reasoning parser for chat, and add the k2_horizon tool-call parser for agent use. Leave both off for plain completion-style generation.
6. 6.Revisions. Pin a revision tag when reproducibility matters. main is the default checkpoint; base_final and the mid_*_final tags identify training stages.

Citation

@misc{k2horizon2026,
  title  = {Introducing K2 Horizon: Frontier Performance, Radically Open},
  author = {{IFM Team}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://ifm.ai/blog/k2/},
}