IBM’s open source models to help Saudi Arabia train AI systems in Arabic

International Business Machines on Tuesday said that it will release a family of artificial intelligence models as open-source software, and that it will help Saudi Arabia train an AI system in Arabic.

The Armonk, New York-based company has taken a different approach to making money from AI than some of its rivals such as Microsoft and others that are tightly guarding their AI models and charging for access to them. Similar to Facebook owner Meta Platforms, IBM is instead providing open access to the models themselves and on Wednesday opened its “Granite” family of AI models for companies to customise.