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Anthropic Skips to Claude Opus 5.5 in Secret Test, Slashes Price to $4

Anthropic's Big Leap: Opus 5.5 Leaked in Internal Testing

Forget Opus 5.2. Anthropic appears to be skipping straight to Claude Opus 5.5, and it's already in secret testing. Developer Lyra broke the news early: the model, codenamed claude-wafer-eap, could hit the market as soon as this Tuesday. And the leaked pricing? A jaw-dropping $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens—clearly aimed at undercutting GPT-6.

A Timeline That Raises Eyebrows

Rewind to July 24: Claude Opus 5 launched officially. A brief 5.2 test checkpoint followed. Now, we're hearing about 5.5. This isn't your typical incremental update. Anthropic seems to be playing a different game—one that involves leapfrogging the competition rather than inching forward.

Testers Say It's a Game-Changer

Developer Harshith, who got his hands on the new model, didn't mince words: "Opus 5.5 has won completely." He built a 3D model of a Waymo self-driving car, complete with intricate details like the Jaguar logo and roof-mounted lidar. The cost? Only half of Opus 5. The token consumption tells a story: just 1,400 input tokens and a whopping 532,000 output tokens, with cache reads at 41.2M.

Another developer, Veee, used Opus 5.5 to create a web-based 3D car display with Three.js. The rendering quality and interactivity were rock-solid. Even more impressive: it generated a fully interactive Wall-E robot console in one go, nailing UI layout, mechanical binding, and IP accuracy. Internal testers report a clear generational gap in problem-solving intuition, deep code refactoring, and long-term planning compared to Opus 5.

The Price War Heats Up

The unconfirmed API pricing is a bombshell: $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens—a 20% cut from Opus 5's $5 and $25. But the real kicker is the caching mechanism. Cache reads drop to $0.2 per million tokens, with writes at $5. For enterprises building long-context autonomous agents, that's an order-of-magnitude cost reduction. Anthropic is clearly turning top-tier AI from a luxury into a daily utility.

Fable 5.2 Also in the Wings

Outside of Opus, the Fable line is stirring. Developer Pankaj Kumar got an early ticket to test Fable 5.2. He reports its 3D generation not only matches Astra but may surpass it—and it grasps user intent without detailed prompts. He built a cliffside villa scene with flawless lighting and materials. Even more astonishing: it generated a complete game using Three.js, with excellent frontend aesthetics. Another developer, Chetaslua, created a miniature world entirely in native JS, rendering a Claude mascot with pure code.

The Three-Way Showdown

Why is everyone so restless? Because Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google are all moving in perfect unison. OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra raised scientific reasoning to new heights, but its high token cost keeps it on the altar. The recent discovery of gpt-6-sol in the API interface has the industry buzzing. Meanwhile, Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei was just calling for the AI industry to slow down—while secretly preparing a Tuesday surprise that slashes prices and targets OpenAI's turf. Google isn't sitting idle either: Gemini 4 Pro is now its great hope, with Logan Kilpatrick calling it Google's largest pre-training project ever.

The real showdown is just days away. Anthropic's strike isn't just against GPT-6; it's against its own IPO anxiety. Skipping versions, cutting prices, rushing ahead—they want to reclaim developers' wallet share before OpenAI's Developer Conference. This Tuesday in Silicon Valley is destined to be another sleepless night.

Key Points

  • Anthropic skips Opus 5.2, tests Opus 5.5 (codenamed claude-wafer-eap) with possible Tuesday launch.
  • Pricing slashed to $4/million input tokens, half the cost of Opus 5, directly challenging GPT-6.
  • Early testers praise Opus 5.5 for superior 3D generation, code refactoring, and long-term planning.
  • Fable 5.2 also in testing, showing strong 3D and game-generation capabilities.
  • Three-way AI race intensifies as Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google prepare major releases before OpenAI's developer conference.