Switzerland has announced the launch of Apertus, a new open-source large language model (LLM). Developed by a consortium of Swiss research institutions, including ETH Zurich and EPFL, Apertus is positioned as a European alternative to proprietary AI models from major tech companies.
The model is available in two sizes, 8 billion and 70 billion parameters, and is designed with a focus on transparency, multilingualism, and public accessibility. The name "Apertus," Latin for "open," reflects the project's commitment to open-source principles, with its architecture, training data, and model weights being made publicly available.
This initiative is a significant step towards fostering a more open and collaborative AI ecosystem, and it will be interesting to see how Apertus is adopted by the developer community.