Meta has joined forces with Hugging Face, an open source community-driven platform that hosts machine learning models and tools, and Scaleway, European cloud leader for AI infrastructures, to launch the “AI Startup Program”, an initiative aimed to accelerate the adoption of open-source artificial intelligence solutions within the French entrepreneurial ecosystem. With the proliferation of foundation models and generative artificial intelligence models, the aim is to bring the economic and technological benefits of open, state-of-the-art models to the French ecosystem.
Located at STATION F in Paris, the world’s largest startup campus, and with the support of the HEC incubator, the programme will support 5 startups in the acceleration phase, from January to June 2024. A panel of experts from Meta, Hugging Face and Scaleway will select projects based on open foundation models and/or demonstrating their willingness to integrate these models into their products and services.
The startups selected will benefit from technical mentoring by researchers, engineers and PhD students from FAIR, Meta’s artificial intelligence research laboratory, access to Hugging Face’s platform and tools, and Scaleway’s computing power in order to develop their services based on open source AI technology bricks. In addition to LLMs – large language models – startups will also be able to draw on foundation and research models in the field of image and sound processing. Applications are open until 1 December 2023.
“For more than 10 years, Meta has been contributing to the development of artificial intelligence using an open and collaborative approach, particularly in France through our FAIR fundamental research laboratory, based in Paris. Our teams have published more than 1,000 open source models and tools, including Llama2, DINOv2 and AudioCraft. This programme is a continuation of this open innovation approach and will strengthen our support for the French ecosystem,”
– Laurent Solly, Meta’s Vice President for Southern Europe
“Hugging Face is thrilled to support Meta’s accelerator program for open-source AI. For me, open-source AI is the most important topic of the decade as it is the cornerstone toward democratizing ethical AI. We’re proof that you can build a successful startup by being open source, and I hope that the next generation of startups will come out of this program.”
– Clément Delangue, CEO of Hugging Face
“For startups working in AI, access to computing power is essential. As the European leader in AI-focused cloud infrastructures, it makes perfect sense for Scaleway to take part in this program, to ensure startups have the resources they need to succeed. Innovation is ingrained in Scaleway’s DNA, so we are excited to contribute actively to this ecosystem.”
– Damien Lucas, Managing Director at Scaleway
“This is the first time we’re seeing so many AI leaders team up for a startup program. We are particularly proud to see our historical partner Meta leading the way and teaming up with our first unicorn Hugging Face and Scaleway, we feel it is absolutely game-changing in terms of expertise and resources. This is not only great news for STATION F but also for the open source AI community as a whole.”
– Roxanne Varza, STATION F Director