Charles University to coordinate large-scale project on large language models for transparent AI in Europe

Europe's leading AI companies and research institutions combine their forces and expertise to develop next-generation open-source language models in an unprecedented collaboration to advance European AI capabilities, the OpenEuroLLM project.

A consortium of 20 leading European research institutions, companies and EuroHPC centres coordinated by Jan Hajič from Charles University, Czechia, and co-led by Peter Sarlin (AMD Silo AI, Finland) will build a family of performant, multilingual, large language foundation models for commercial, industrial and public services. “The transparent and compliant open-source models will democratize access to high-quality AI technologies and strengthen the ability of European companies to compete on a global market and public organizations to produce impactful public services,” explained the project coordinator Prof. Jan Hajič from the Faculty of Mathematics and Physics of Charles University.

The OpenEuroLLM project is aligned with the imperative to improve Europe’s competitiveness and digital sovereignty. “The project is a prime example of the type of technology infrastructure needed to lower thresholds for European AI product development and refinement, demonstrating the strength of transparency, openness and community involvement, values largely recognized across the European tech ecosystem. The models will be developed within Europe's robust regulatory framework, ensuring alignment with European values while maintaining technological excellence,” underlined the Rector of Charles University Prof. Milena Králíčková.

Cooperating with open-source and open science communities like LAION, open-sci and OpenML, and additional experts in the field assembled in the project’s Open Strategic Partnership Board, OpenEuroLLM will ensure that the models, software, data and evaluation will be fully open and can be fine-tuned and instruction-tuned for specific industry and public sector needs. These performant multilingual models preserve both linguistic and cultural diversity, enabling European companies to develop high-quality products and services in the era of AI.

The project, which has been awarded the STEP (Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform) seal, leverages support from previous European projects and the experience of the partners and their results, including large repositories of high-quality data and pilot LLMs developed previously. The consortium commences its work on February 1st, 2025, with funding from the European Commission under the Digital Europe Programme.

The projects fit in with the rich Czech national scene, with a number of centres, universities and start-ups involved in AI and NLP research. Charles University and the host Institute promote open science through a number of projects and activities, including the national EOSC CZ ecosystem, several European Research Infrastructures and by cooperation with both universities and research centres in Europe and beyond. The required co-funding will be provided by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports.