Welcome to the era of AI nationalism
The hottest technology of 2023 had a busy last few weeks of the year. On November 28th Abu Dhabi launched a new state-backed artificial-intelligence firm, AI71, that will commercialise its leading “large language model" (LLM), Falcon. On December 11th Mistral, a seven-month-old French model-builder, announced a blockbuster $400m funding round, which insiders say will value the firm at over $2bn.
Four days later Krutrim, a new Indian startup, unveiled India’s first multilingual LLM, barely a week after Sarvam, a five-month old one, raised $41m to build similar Indian-language models. Ever since OpenAI , an American firm, launched ChatGPT, its human-like conversationalist, in November 2022, just about every month has brought a flurry of similar news. Against that backdrop, the three latest announcements might look unexceptional.
Look closer, though, and they hint at something more profound. The three companies are, in their own distinct ways, vying to become AI national champions. “We want AI71 to compete globally with the likes of OpenAI", says Faisal al-Bannai of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council, the state agency behind the Emirati startup.
“Bravo to Mistral, that’s French genius," crowed Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, recently. ChatGPT and other English-first LLMs “cannot capture our culture, language and ethos", declared Krutrim’s founder, Bhavish Aggarwal. Sarvam started with Indian languages because, in the words of its co-founder, Vivek Raghavan, “We’re building an Indian company." AI is already at the heart of the intensifying technological contest between America and China.
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