Meta and Microsoft have joined forces to introduce Llama 2, an open-source large language model developed by Meta that will be integrated into Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Azure cloud computing platform.
The collaboration between the two tech giants was officially announced on July 18. Llama 2, designed specifically for business and research purposes on Meta’s AI technology stack, is now available for free use in both academic and commercial settings.
Additionally, the model has been optimized to run seamlessly on Windows.
Meta claims that Llama 2 has been trained using a significantly larger dataset, incorporating 40% more publicly available online sources compared to its predecessor, Llama 1.
This enhancement allows Llama 2 to process twice as much context, boosting its performance in coding, proficiency, reasoning, and knowledge tests.
However, the company acknowledges that Llama 2 falls slightly behind closed-source competitors like OpenAI’s GPT-4 in terms of efficiency, as highlighted in one of Meta’s research papers.
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Expressing his enthusiasm, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to Instagram on July 18 to emphasize the benefits of Llama 2, stating that it provides researchers and businesses with a cutting-edge language model as the foundation for their work.
Meta has been pleasantly surprised by the overwhelming demand for Llama 1 since its limited release in February.
Despite only offering limited access, the company received over 100,000 requests. Unfortunately, Llama 1 was later leaked online by a user on the imageboard website 4chan.
In contrast, ChatGPT, another popular language model, enjoyed tremendous success, attracting an estimated 100 million or more users within the first three months, as reported by Reuters in February.
With this partnership, Microsoft has now established itself as a supporter of two major players in the AI domain. In 2023 alone, the company invested a total of $13 million in OpenAI, according to a Fortune report published in January.
Meta’s decision to open source Llama received criticism from two US senators in June.
The senators raised concerns about the potential vulnerabilities in the initial version of Llama, suggesting that it could be exploited by malicious actors for criminal purposes.
Overall, the collaboration between Meta and Microsoft aims to advance the capabilities of large language models, providing researchers and businesses with powerful tools while addressing any potential risks associated with their deployment.
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