Meta and Microsoft have unveiled Llama, the next generation of open-source large language model. Llama 2 is free for research and commercial use. They are also opening access to Llama 2 with the support of several companies and people across tech, academia, and policy.
Democratizing AI through the power of partnership.🎉 We're excited to welcome Llama 2 from @Meta to @Azure and @Windows: https://t.co/OJyYP9sVBA
— Microsoft (@Microsoft) July 18, 2023
According to Meta, Llama 2 was trained on 40 percent more data as compared to Llama 1 and has double the context length. The company also claims that it can outperform other LLMs like Falcon and MPT in reading, coding, proficiency, and knowledge tests.
Companies can customize the Llama 2 as per their needs and purposes such as chatbots and image generators.
“We believe an open approach is the right one for the development of today’s AI models, especially those in the generative space where the technology is rapidly advancing. By making AI models available openly, they can benefit everyone. We believe that openly sharing today’s large language models will support the development of helpful and safer generative AI too,” Meta said in a statement.
Meta is releasing two versions of Llama 2: pre-trained and conversation-oriented. Microsoft is also making it available through the Azure AI catalog. Llama 2 will also be available with AWS, Hugging Face, and other providers. The company will sell the program as a paid hosted service by its partner cloud computing companies.
Although Meta is releasing the code for free, users will have to accept the policy guidelines for commercial usage. The policy limits the use of Llama 2 for illegal purposes.
