Meta joins forces with Hugging Face and Scaleway to accelerate open-source innovation

Meta has just announced the launch of the "AI Startup Program" in collaboration with Hugging Face and Scaleway. The program aims to accelerate the adoption of open-source AI within French enterprises so they can exploit the technological and economic benefits of open, state-of-the-art models. The program is located at STATION F in Paris, and with backing from the HEC incubator, it will bolster five startups in the acceleration phase from January to June 2024.

The startups will be picked out by a panel of Meta, Hugging Face, and Scaleway experts, who will select projects based on open foundation models or startups willing to integrate those models into their current products and services. Those accepted will benefit from technical mentoring by researchers, engineers, and PhD students from FAIR, Meta's artificial intelligence research laboratory. The startups will also benefit from Hugging Face's platform and tools and Scaleway's computing power. Furthermore, startups will be able to access not only LLMs but also foundation and research models for image and sound processing. The program will be receiving applications until December 1, 2023.

Representatives from all participating entities expressed their approval of the program. STATION F Director Roxanne Varza stated her belief that the program "is not only great news for STATION F but also for the open source AI community as a whole," while Meta’s Vice President for Southern Europe, Laurent Solly declared that "[t]his programme is a continuation of this open innovation approach and will strengthen our support for the French ecosystem."

Interested startups should apply at https://hecparis.notion.site/AI-Startup-Program-Candidate-Antechamber-c00cf88ed2e741029f5e3d50a1e44e39