{"slug": "underdog-releases-a-163-mb-speech-model-built-from-nvidia-s-parakeet", "title": "Underdog releases a 163 MB speech model built from NVIDIA's Parakeet", "summary": "Conway Research founder Sigil Wen released Underdog Bark 3.0, a 163 MB speech-to-text model for laptops and phones, on October 21 under the CC-BY 4.0 license. Wen said the model, built from NVIDIA's Parakeet, matches or beats larger systems on recorded-meeting transcription while running locally, though its published benchmark puts it level with Parakeet on average rather than ahead.", "body_md": "# Underdog releases a 163 MB speech model built from NVIDIA's Parakeet\n\n**Founder Sigil Wen says Bark 3.0 transcribes meeting audio locally; its published benchmark puts it level with Parakeet on average, not ahead.**\n\n        By [Ryan Merket](https://runtimewire.com/author/ryan-merket)\n        · Published \n\nPrimary source: [X](https://x.com/UnderdogAI/status/2112733007484518470)\n\n## Why it matters\n\nBark makes Conway's on-device AI thesis concrete: a 163 MB speech model with competitive company-reported accuracy, built from existing models and published under a permissive license. Its benchmark table supports a strong result, not an unqualified claim of being the best.\n\n[Sigil Wen](https://sigilwen.ca/index.html), founder of Conway Research, released [Underdog Bark 3.0](https://huggingface.co/ConwayResearch/Underdog-Bark-3.0) on October 21st, pitching a 163 MB [speech-to-text](https://runtimewire.com/models/huggingface/codenamewei-speech-to-text-0e73183c7962a8ad) model for laptops and phones. In his [announcement on X](https://x.com/UnderdogAI/status/2112733007484518470), Wen said it matches or beats larger systems on recorded-meeting transcription while running locally. The model weights are available under the CC-BY 4.0 license.…\n\nWhen you purchase through links in our articles, [we may earn a small commission](https://runtimewire.com/affiliate-monetization-standards). This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/underdog-releases-a-163-mb-speech-model-built-from-nvidia-s-parakeet", "canonical_source": "https://runtimewire.com/article/underdog-bark-3-speech-model", "published_at": "2026-10-21 05:16:08+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-10-21 08:41:22.208700+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "machine-learning", "ai-products", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Underdog Bark 3.0", "Conway Research", "Sigil Wen", "NVIDIA", "Parakeet"], "also_reported_by": [], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/underdog-releases-a-163-mb-speech-model-built-from-nvidia-s-parakeet", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/underdog-releases-a-163-mb-speech-model-built-from-nvidia-s-parakeet.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/underdog-releases-a-163-mb-speech-model-built-from-nvidia-s-parakeet.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/underdog-releases-a-163-mb-speech-model-built-from-nvidia-s-parakeet.jsonld"}}