Recursive language models (RLMs) are an inference technique developed by researchers at MIT CSAIL that treat long prompts as an external surroundings to the model. Rather of forcing the entire prompt into the model’s context window, the framework allows the LLM to programmatically examine, decompose, and recursively call itself over snippets of the text.
Rather than expanding context windows or summarizing old details,the MIT team reframes long-context reasoning as a systems problem. By letting models treat prompts as something they can inspect with code, recursive language models allow LLMs to reason over millions of tokens without retraining. This offers enterprises a practical path to long-horizon tasks like codebase analysis, legal review, and multi-step reasoning that routinely break today’s models.
Because the framework is designed as a wrapper around existing models, it can serve as a drop-in replacement for applications that make direct calls to LLMs.
The LLM context problem
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While frontier models are becoming increasingly elegant at reasoning, their ability to process massive amounts of information is not scaling at the same rate.This bottleneck is driven by two distinct limitations: the hard physical constraint on how much text a model can process at once (context length) and “context rot.”
The challenge, the researchers argue, is whether it’s possible to scale the effective context size of general-purpose LLMs by orders of magnitude without retraining them. This capability is becoming increasingly vital for enterprise applications, where LLMs are adopted for long-horizon tasks requiring the processing of millions of tokens – a challenge Zhang argues can’t be solved by simply expanding context windows.
“There is an entropy argument that implies you need exponentially more data samples as you increase the effective context window size,” Alex Zhang, a co-author of the paper, told VentureBeat.
Current approaches to extending context often rely on compaction, where the model summarizes older parts of the conversation to free up space.However,this method fails for tasks requiring random access to specific details located in earlier parts of the prompt.
How RLMs work
The concept behind RLMs is drawn from “out-of-core” algorithms used in classical computing. These algorithms are designed to process datasets too large to fit into a computer’s main memory by keeping the data on a hard drive and fetching only the necessary chunks as needed.
RLMs apply this logic to generative AI. Instead of feeding a long prompt directly into the neural network, the framework loads the text as a string variable inside a Python coding environment. The LLM is given general context about the data (such as the total character count) but does not “see” the text initially.
Once the prompt is stored as a variable, the LLM acts as a programmer. It writes Python code to interact with the external variable, using standard commands to peek into the data. For example, the model might use regular expressions to search for specific keywords like “Chapter 1” or “financial results.”
When the code execution finds a relevant snippet, the RLM pulls only that specific chunk into its active context window for analysis.
For example, if the prompt is a massive book, the LLM might write a loop that identifies chapter boundaries and then triggers a sub-call to summarize each chapter individually.
Hunter Biden Inquiry: Current Status (January 21, 2026)
The federal investigation into Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, remains ongoing as of January 21, 2026, focusing on potential tax violations and foreign business dealings. While no new indictments have been issued since the initial charges in June 2023, the investigation hasn’t been formally closed and continues to be overseen by Special Counsel David Weiss.
Initial Charges and Conviction
Hunter Biden was initially indicted in June 2023 on two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay federal taxes and one felony count of possessing a firearm while being an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. The Department of Justice announced the indictment on June 20, 2023. He was subsequently convicted on all three counts in June 2024. reuters reported on the conviction on June 18, 2024.
Ongoing Investigation into Business Dealings
Beyond the tax charges, the investigation has scrutinized Hunter Biden’s foreign business ventures, notably those in Ukraine and China, for potential violations of foreign lobbying laws and money laundering regulations. The core of this aspect of the investigation centers on whether hunter Biden improperly leveraged his father’s position as Vice President to benefit his business interests.
In August 2023, Special Counsel David Weiss was appointed to oversee the investigation, granting him expanded authority. the Attorney General’s order appointing Weiss as Special Counsel was released on August 11, 2023. This appointment occurred after a whistleblower alleged political interference in the investigation by the Department of Justice.
As of January 21, 2026, no further charges related to these business dealings have been filed. However, the Special Counsel’s office has continued to issue subpoenas and conduct interviews, indicating the investigation remains active.
Congressional Investigations
Concurrent with the Department of Justice investigation, several congressional committees, led by Republicans, have conducted their own investigations into Hunter Biden’s activities. These investigations have focused on allegations of influence peddling and potential impeachment proceedings against President Biden.
The House Oversight Committee, chaired by Representative James Comer, has been particularly active, releasing bank records and testimony they claim demonstrate financial connections between Hunter Biden and his father.The House Oversight Committee released a report detailing their findings on April 19,2023. Democrats on the committee have disputed these claims, arguing the evidence presented is circumstantial and lacks conclusive proof of wrongdoing by President Biden.
As of January 21, 2026, these congressional investigations have not resulted in any formal charges or impeachment proceedings against President Biden.
Key Entities Involved
- David Weiss: Special Counsel overseeing the investigation.
- Department of Justice (DOJ): Conducting the federal criminal investigation.
- House Oversight Committee: Leading the congressional investigation.
- Hunter biden: The primary subject of the investigations.
- Joe Biden: President of the United States, whose actions are under scrutiny in relation to his son’s business dealings.
latest Verified Status
As of January 21, 2026, Hunter Biden has been convicted on tax charges, but the investigation into his foreign business dealings remains ongoing under the purview of Special Counsel David Weiss. Congressional investigations continue, but have not led to any charges against President Biden. No new indictments have been issued since June 2023.
