An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Facebook parent Meta is teaming up with Hugging Face and European cloud infrastructure firm Scaleway to launch a new AI-focused startup program at the Station F startup megacampus in Paris. The main objective of the program is to promote a more “open and collaborative” approach to the development of artificial intelligence in the French technological world. The timing of the announcement is significant, coming amid increasing regulatory pressure and a marked conflict between the “open” and “closed” fields of artificial intelligence. […]
While Meta itself was opening up its own generative AI models, Hugging Face — a billion-dollar startup with VC backing in its own right — set up its booth as a kind of open source alternative to OpenAI, full of open alternatives like ChatGPT and leaders of community projects such as BigScience. So in many ways, the pairing of Meta and Hugging Face today makes a lot of sense, given their views on the whole “open” vs. “closed” AI debate. “For me, open source AI is the most important topic of the decade because it is a cornerstone towards the democratization of ethical AI,” Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue said in a statement.
From now until December 1 (2023), startups can apply to join the new “AI Startup Program” at Station F, with five winners moving on to the accelerator program that will run from January to June. The selected startups, selected by a jury from Meta, Hugging Face and French cloud company Scaleway, will have at least one thing in common — they will be working on projects that are fundamentally built on open-source models, or at the very least they will be able to demonstrate “a willingness to integrate these models in its products and services”, stated in today’s press release published by Meta. “With the proliferation of fundamental models and generative models of artificial intelligence, the aim is to bring the economic and technological advantages of open, state-of-the-art models to the French ecosystem,” the announcement said. Indeed, the winning startups will be mentored by researchers and engineers at Meta, get access to Hugging Face’s various platforms and tools, and computing resources from Scaleway.