UAE’s Falcon 40B AI model is now royalty free for commercial, research use

image: Technology Innovation Institute

Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute’s (TII) Falcon 40B, the UAE’s leading large-scale open-source AI model, is now free of royalties for commercial and research use, in response to global demand for inclusive access to AI.

Falcon 40B is said to outperform competitors such as Meta’s LLaMA and Stability AI’s StableLM.

Falcon 40B is a foundational large language model (LLM) with 40 billion parameters and trained on one trillion tokens,

TII is providing access to the model’s weights as a more comprehensive open-source package, to enable access to powerful LLM capabilities, promote transparency and accountability and support innovation and research in the field.

Under the permissive Apache 2.0 software license, the model‘s end-users have access to any patent covered by the software in question. Apache 2.0 ensures the security and availability of safe and powerful open-source software and establishes an effective governance model.

According to a statement, TII’s unrestricted access to Falcon 40B “highlights its dedication to technological innovation and knowledge-sharing, fostering a collaborative ecosystem and strengthening the UAE’s position as a global AI leader”.  

Falcon 40B could serve public and private sector entities effectively

Open-source, royalty-free deployment of Falcon 40B could enable public and private sector entities with efficiencies such as faster project starts, faster iterations, more flexible software development processes, robust community-driven support, and easier license management.

TII said its aim is to cultivate a thriving ecosystem of collaboration, innovation, and knowledge sharing among developers, researchers, and businesses globally.

The move will enable transparency, inclusivity, and accelerated progress in AI for the world, unlocking diverse opportunities for its applications across industries and sectors, said TII.

Dr Ebtesam Almazrouei, director, AI Cross-Center Unit at TII, said: “Waiving Falcon 40B royalties promotes inclusive tech advancements for a cohesive society. We’re committed to using technology to unify humanity and future-proof our world.”