The Government of Spain and IBM have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to promote their collaboration in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and AI supercomputing; advance the development and practical deployment of open, ethical and responsible generative AI in Spain; and share the vision to create a leading suite of foundation models including both large language models (LLMs) and small language models (SLMs) proficient in the Spanish language and co-official languages.
The president of Spain, Pedro Sánchez, stressed that agreements such as this one demonstrate Spain’s commitment to accelerate the ethical and responsible use of AI, particularly in the public sector, with great impact on productivity for many sectors of the economy and on Europe’s strategic autonomy.
The MoU was signed today in Madrid by Darío Gil, senior vice-president and director of IBM Research, and José Luis Escrivá, Minister for Digital Transformation and Civil Service of the government of Spain.
Tapping into IBM’s open-source AI framework, communities will be able to shape and contribute to the Spanish LLM that will also include co-official languages (Catalan, Basque, Galician and Valencian) increasing innovation, transparency, and safety while ensuring a more cost-efficient yet technologically competitive position in the market. The collaboration also reflects the intention to develop AI-enhanced techniques to accelerate the discovery, development, and validation of new materials to increase the sustainability of the semiconductors value chain.
“AI positions us at the threshold of a new industrial revolution with a very significant potential impact in terms of productivity gains for a large number of economic sectors and in providing better public services to our citizens,” says Escrivá.
“The government of Spain is promoting a useful and ethical development of the opportunities offered by this technology. IBM, with its experience, knowledge, and resources is an excellent partner to accompany us in our vision.”
Gil adds: “IBM shares this bold vision to accelerate the government of Spain’s AI strategy and to be the national AI partner for Spain. We will leverage IBM’s deep investments across the entire AI stack – from compute to models – and we will enable an open community to drive the full potential of AI technologies. Together, we will work to foster the responsible use of AI to drive sustainable growth in Spain and all Spanish speaking countries worldwide.”
Spanish is the second leading spoken language in the world (6,2% of the world’s population). One of the priority areas under this MoU is to collaborate in a leading suite of foundation models including both large language models (LLMs) and small language models (SLMs) proficient in the Spanish language and co-official languages.
Creating models that are entirely designed in Spanish will enhance AI sustainability by reducing biases and providing competitive alternatives for the Spanish industry. These models will be refined using advanced tuning and alignment techniques encompassing innovative methods that facilitate direct community enhancements and foster an ecosystem of AI creators and builders, utilising assets developed through this collaboration.
Recent advances in generative AI and AI supercomputing hold tremendous promise for governments and economies which can realise the productivity gains enabled by these technologies. With this collaboration, the government of Spain is taking decisive action to seize this opportunity with timely and transformative commitments to invest in the AI revolution.
The coordination within government institutions in this field will facilitate both widespread use of AI across national, regional and local economies, as well as the timely and sufficient resources needed to build competitive advantages within a rapidly evolving AI-driven commercial landscape.
This includes investment in human capital (upskilling and tooling) and community-driven adoption of AI to ensure that the productivity benefits and economic gains can positively impact across the economy of Spain – from small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) to large enterprises and the public sector.
Taking this into account, the Memorandum of Understanding is based on five principles:
* Promote the development of a suite of foundation models, including both large language models (LLMs) and small language models (SLMs), proficient in the Spanish language and co-official languages.
* Collaborate on the research and development of a full stack generative AI platform including software built on open-source frameworks and tools, as well as infrastructure enabling hardware diversity.
* Promote national and regional AI strategies through a cooperative approach that promotes a responsible use of the foundation models and the associated generative AI platform. This collaborative effort aims to benefit the public sector and SMEs throughout Spain.
* Foster an ecosystem of AI creators and builders utilising assets developed through this collaboration to establish Spain as a global leader in AI.
* Develop AI-enhanced techniques to accelerate the discovery, development, and validation of new materials to advance the sustainability of the semiconductor industry value chain.
An additional priority described under this MoU is to collaborate on the research and development of AI technology for supercomputing applications.