Meta has set to make its presence felt in the artificial intelligence space as it has announced the release of the commercial version of its open-source AI model Llama. The AI model and its new version of Llama 2 will be distributed by Microsoft through its Azure cloud service and will run on the Windows operating system. Llama can turn out to be a great alternative for pricy proprietary models sold by OpenAI like ChatGPT and Google Bard.
Mark Zuckerberg said that the model, which was previously exclusively offered to a limited number of academics for research endeavors, will now be accessible through direct downloads and various platforms such as Amazon Web Services, Hugging Face, and other service providers.
“Open source drives innovation because it enables many more developers to build with new technology,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post. “I believe it would unlock more progress if the ecosystem were more open,” he added.
The broad availability and free accessibility of the advanced Llama model pose a significant challenge to the existing dominance in the emerging market for generative AI software. Established players like OpenAI, supported by Microsoft and already offering their models to business customers through Azure, could face disruption. The initial version of Llama was already on par with models powering OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard chatbot.
Moreover, the new version of Llama has undergone training on 40% more data than its predecessor, incorporating over 1 million human annotations to enhance the quality of its outputs, as stated by Zuckerberg.
Llama could change the picture
“Commercial Llama could change the picture,” said Amjad Masad, chief executive at software developer platform Replit. “Any incremental improvement in open-source models is eating into the market share of closed-source models because you can run them cheaply and have less dependency,” said Masad.
In response to the moves made by its major cloud competitors, Microsoft has announced its plans to provide business customers with a variety of AI models to choose from. For example, Amazon is offering access to Claude, an AI developed by the well-known startup Anthropic, in addition to its lineup of Titan models. Similarly, Google has expressed its intention to make Claude and other models accessible to its cloud customers.
Before this announcement, Microsoft had primarily focused on making technology from OpenAI available through Azure.
(With inputs from Reuters)
Updated: 18 Jul 2023, 10:44 PM IST
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