Meta is making its Llama AI models available to government agencies and contractors working on national security, the company said in an update. The group includes more than a dozen private companies affiliated with the U.S. government, including Amazon Web Services, Oracle and Microsoft, as well as defense contractors such as Palantir and Lockheed Martin.
Mark Zuckerberg hinted at the move during Meta’s earnings call last week, saying the company was “working with the public sector to adopt Llamas across the U.S. government.” Meta is now providing further details about the scope of its work.
For example, Oracle is “leveraging Llama to consolidate aircraft maintenance documentation so that technicians can diagnose problems faster and more accurately, reduce repair time, and return critical aircraft to service.” According to Meta, Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are “using Llama to help governments by hosting our models on secure cloud solutions for sensitive data.” is.
Meta is also offering similar access to Llama to governments and contractors in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, Bloomberg reports. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, suggested in a blog post that the partnership could help the U.S. compete with China in the global arms race over artificial intelligence. “We believe that the American open source model is better than those of China and others, and that it is in the interests of both the United States and the broader democratic world that it succeeds,” he said. “As an American company, and because our success owes in part to America’s entrepreneurial and democratic values, Meta is committed to supporting the safety, security, and economic prosperity of America and its closest neighbors. We want to help our allies as well.”
