Switzerland has announced the launch of Apertus, a new open-source large language model (LLM) developed by ETH Zurich, EPFL, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre. The model is available in two sizes: an 8-billion-parameter version for individual use and a 70-billion-parameter version for more complex applications.
Apertus, which means "open" in Latin, is designed with transparency and multilingualism as core principles. The project's technical lead, Imanol Schlag, stated that "Apertus is built for the public good" and is one of the few fully open LLMs at its scale.
The model's architecture, training data, model weights, and intermediate checkpoints are all open-source. While initial access is limited to Swisscom business customers, Apertus is available on Hugging Face for developers to build AI applications. The project aims to foster AI innovation and strengthen Switzerland's AI sovereignty.
