Washington (United States) (AFP) – Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called Monday for lower barriers for open source AI, as his company introduced a new model that can run on a personal computer. The launch comes amid debate in the United States on whether access to the technology should be more restricted, and on local pushback against the buildout of data centers that power it.
This was accompanied by a long essay on the Meta website outlining Zuckerberg’s vision for artificial intelligence in which he stressed the need to remain competitive against countries like China, among other issues. Competitors OpenAI and Anthropic largely focus on closed AI models.
Zuckerberg said in an Instagram video Monday that his company would open the weights for its latest AI model, enabling it to be downloaded by the public. Weights refer to calculations or rules governing how an AI system behaves. He said Meta would also release a new class of open source models, designed to run on a laptop.
“Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it,” Zuckerberg said in his essay. He took aim at other labs that are “focused on building AI for companies, governments or other institutions,” arguing that this would tip the balance of power in favor of institutions instead of individuals.
Facing pressure over the novelty of their capabilities, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order in June setting up a voluntary federal review of national security risks in advanced AI models before their release. Zuckerberg added that foreign labs hold advantages over US ones that have to comply with restrictions on training data.
“I do not believe restricting access to foreign open source models is an effective solution,” he said. “Our goal should be for American open source models to be the best globally. This requires removing the hurdles that make it harder for American open source models to compete,” he said.
Amid growing public opposition to data center development in the United States, Zuckerberg added that Meta is launching a fund to directly support communities around its facilities. A Meta spokesperson said the size of the fund, launched Monday, is $1 billion.
Meta has in recent months reaffirmed plans to keep spending heavily on the data centers and chips underpinning its AI effort. It expects capital expenditures of up to $145 billion this year, nearly doubling the amount it spent in 2025.
© 2024 AFP
