On July 23, Meta released its latest AI model, Llama 3.1, marking a significant milestone in the company’s foray into the AI industry. According to Meta, Llama 3.1 is the largest open-source AI model to date and has already surpassed top competitors, including GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 Sonnet, in various benchmarks. Last year, Llama 2 was only comparable to older generations of AI models, but Llama 3.1 now competes with and leads against the most advanced models available.
What is Llama 3.1?
Llama 3.1 is Meta’s most complex AI model to date, built upon the foundation of Llama 3. In a blog post, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg emphasized the significance of open-source AI models, comparing their potential impact to that of Linux, which outpaced proprietary operating systems to become a dominant force in modern computing.
Zuckerberg drew parallels between Meta’s current investment in open-source AI and its previous Open Compute Project, which achieved substantial cost savings through collaborative innovation. He expects similar advancements and efficiencies in AI development, predicting that Llama 3.1 will become a pivotal point where most developers start favoring open-source models.
Llama 3.1 will be available on major cloud platforms, including AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle, and others. Companies like Scale.AI, Dell, and Deloitte are prepared to assist enterprises in adopting Llama and training custom models with their own data. Notably, Meta has not disclosed the source data used for training Llama 3.1.
Meta AI Goes Multilingual
In addition to Llama 3.1, Meta is expanding the reach of its Llama-based AI assistant to more countries and languages. A new feature enables image generation based on a person’s unique appearance. Meta AI is now available in 22 countries, with the latest additions being Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, and Cameroon.
Users can interact with Meta AI across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook in several new languages, including French, German, Hindi, Hindi-Romanised Script, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish, with more languages expected to follow.
With these advancements, Meta aims to solidify its position in the AI industry and drive the adoption of open-source AI models, much like its success with the Open Compute Project.