Latest news with #FalconArabic
Al Etihad
24-05-2025
- Business
- Al Etihad
Abu Dhabi's Technology Innovation Institute launches two new AI models
24 May 2025 09:32 ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)The UAE's Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research arm of Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), has unveiled two major AI advancements: Falcon Arabic, the first-ever Arabic language model in the Falcon series - now the best-performing Arabic AI model in the region - and Falcon H1, a new model that redefines performance and portability through a new architectural the small-to-medium size category of AI models (30 to 70 billion parameters), Falcon H1 outperforms comparable offerings from Meta's LLaMA and Alibaba's Qwen, enabling real-world AI on everyday devices and in resource-limited announcement was made during a keynote address by Faisal Al Bannai, Advisor to the UAE President and Secretary General of ATRC, at the recently concluded Make it in the Emirates event in Abu on top of Falcon 3-7B (7-billion-parameter), Falcon Arabic is one of the most advanced Arabic AI models developed to date. Trained on a high-quality native, non-translated Arabic dataset spanning Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects, it captures the full linguistic diversity of the Arab to the Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard benchmarks, Falcon Arabic outperforms all other regionally available Arabic language models, reinforcing its leadership in sovereign, multilingual AI. It ranks as the best-performing Arabic model in its class, matching the performance of models up to 10 times its size, proving that smart architecture can outperform the newly launched Falcon H1 model is designed to dramatically expand access to high-performance AI by reducing the computing power and technical expertise traditionally required to run advanced systems. The announcement builds on the success of TII's Falcon 3 series, which ranked among the top global AI models capable of operating on a single graphics processing unit (GPU), a major breakthrough that enabled developers, startups, and institutions without high-end infrastructure to deploy cutting-edge AI, affordably."We're proud to finally bring Arabic to Falcon, and prouder still that the best-performing large language model in the Arab world was built in the UAE," Faisal Al Bannai on Falcon H1, he said, "Today, AI leadership is not about scale for the sake of scale. It is about making powerful tools useful, usable, and universal. Falcon-H1 reflects our commitment to delivering AI that works for everyone – not just the few."Falcon-H1 continues to support European-origin languages, and for the first time, has scalable capability to support over 100 languages, thanks to a multilingual tokenizer trained on diverse datasets. Smarter, Simpler, and More InclusiveFalcon-H1 was developed to meet the growing global demand for efficient, flexible, and easy-to-use AI systems. Named 'H' for its hybrid architecture combining the strengths of Transformers and Mamba, it enables significantly faster inference speeds and lower memory consumption, while maintaining high performance across a range of benchmarks "We approached Falcon-H1 not just as a research milestone but as an engineering challenge: how to deliver exceptional efficiency without compromise," said Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO of TII.'This model reflects our commitment to building technically rigorous systems with real-world utility. Falcon isn't just a model; it's a foundation that empowers researchers, developers, and innovators, especially in environments where resources are limited but ambitions are not," she Falcon-H1 family includes models of various sizes: 34B, 7B, 3B, 1.5B, 1.5B-deep, and 500M. These models offer users a wide range of performance-to-efficiency ratios, allowing developers to choose the most appropriate model for their deployment scenarios. While the smaller models enable deployment on constrained edge devices, the flagship 34B model outperforms like-models from Meta's LlaMa and Alibaba's Qwen on complex tasks."The Falcon-H1 series demonstrates how new architectures can unlock new opportunities in AI training while showcasing the potential of ultra-compact models," explained Dr. Hakim Hacid, Chief Researcher at the AI and Digital Science Research Center at TII."This fundamentally shifts what's possible at the smallest scale, enabling powerful AI on edge devices where privacy, efficiency, and low latency are critical. Our focus has been on reducing complexity without compromising capability," he model in the Falcon-H1 family surpasses other models that are twice its size, setting a new standard for performance-to-efficiency ratios. The models additionally excel in mathematics, reasoning, coding, long-context understanding, and multilingual tasks. International ImpactFalcon models are already powering real-world applications. In partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Falcon has supported the development of AgriLLM, a solution that helps farmers make smarter decisions under challenging climate conditions. TII's Falcon ecosystem has been downloaded over 55 million times globally, and is widely regarded as the most powerful and consistently high-performing family of open AI models to emerge from the Middle East many AI models focus on narrow consumer use cases, TII has prioritised building foundational models that can be adapted to meet the demanding needs of industry, research, and public good, without compromising on accessibility. These models are designed to be applied across a variety of real-world scenarios, remaining accessible, resource-efficient, and adaptable to different environments. All Falcon models are open source and available on Hugging Face and under the TII Falcon License, an Apache 2.0-based license, which promotes responsible and ethical AI development. Source: Aletihad - Abu Dhabi
CairoScene
24-05-2025
- Business
- CairoScene
Region's Most Advanced AI Language Model Launches in UAE
Falcon Arabic is expected to enhance natural language processing applications across sectors, empowering Arabic speakers worldwide. May 24, 2025 The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi has officially launched a cutting-edge large language model designed specifically for the Arabic language—Falcon Arabic. Building on the success of the original Falcon AI model introduced in 2023, Falcon Arabic is the first of its kind developed within the region and outperforms all other Arabic language models currently available. The development addresses longstanding concerns about Arabic's role in the rapidly evolving global AI landscape, ensuring the language keeps pace with technological innovation. Falcon Arabic is expected to enhance natural language processing applications across sectors—from education and government to business and media—empowering Arabic speakers worldwide with more accurate, nuanced AI tools. As AI continues to transform economies and societies, Falcon Arabic represents a strategic investment in linguistic diversity and technological sovereignty—ensuring that Arabic remains a vibrant and integral part of the AI future.
Al Etihad
22-05-2025
- Business
- Al Etihad
ATRC showcases UAE's AI prowess at MIITE 2025
23 May 2025 00:10 SARA ALZAABI (ABU DHABI)Reaffirming the UAE's leadership in the global AI landscape, the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) showcased the nation's technological capabilities at this year's Make it in the Emirates (MIITE) event, presenting a diverse array of innovations — from advanced AI models to autonomous the UAE's overarching R&D authority, the ATRC drives the nation's ambitions by identifying, developing, and deploying the science, intelligence, and transformative technologies needed to achieve them, the team told Aletihad on the sidelines of the year, it launched Falcon Arabic, the region's most advanced Arabic AI model, and Falcon-H1, a high-performance model that runs on everyday devices.'From sovereign AI to autonomous drones to stealth materials and energy-saving coatings, we are turning national ambition into visible, scalable outcomes; reinforcing that the UAE has arrived on the global innovation stage,' the ATRC told Aletihad. AI71 in Spotlight Among the subsidiaries the council highlighted at MIITE is AI71, an AI company that builds cutting-edge, enterprise-level applications — from AI-driven assistants to healthcare and construction products help organisations analyse data, conduct research, and streamline communication, among others, so they can effectively support their clients and create to Aletihad, Chiara Marcati from the company's AI Advisory & Business team elaborated on AI71's tech showcase, including its two flagship products, ASK71 and CONS71."ASK71 is our enterprise orchestration engine. It helps organisations locate their data, act on it, automate workflows, and orchestrate operations," Marcati on the other hand, is a one-stop AI-powered platform for the construction industry, she said. 'It handles everything from AI-driven planning to compliance checks, digital twins, and remote monitoring through IoT and satellite imagery."These two products are backed by in-house AI capabilities. Bigger projects are in the pipeline as AI71 forged partnerships with TII and Amazon Web Services (AWS). The collaboration combines AI71's enterprise solutions with TII's R&D, and AWS' cloud infrastructure to spur AI innovation, enhance privacy, and nurture talent. The strategic partnership 'spans R&D, co-developing products, creating go-to-market strategies, and launching 'AI-in-a-box' solutions for governments and enterprises', Marcati said. Besides developing cutting-edge solutions, AI71 rolls out initiatives to support startups and boost talent development. 'We are actively partnering with universities, accelerators like AWS and MBZUAI, and mentoring startups. We are deeply involved in nurturing the local ecosystem,' Marcati said. Ethical responsibility is also central to AI71's mission. "Responsible AI is not just a buzzword for us. We have integrated it into our engineering process with dedicated roles and a clear set of guardrails. We conduct quarterly reviews at the leadership level and bring these discussions to our company-wide town halls." AI71 echoes the broader push of ATRC to develop technologies not only for the UAE but for the world. The council accelerates industrial growth by performing applied R&D and validating technologies — making sure the innovations are ready for industrial large-scale, real-world use. 'ATRC is a dynamic R&D ecosystem designed to turn scientific discovery into sovereign capability for the intelligence era, and that capability translates to long-term industrial strength,' the council's spokesperson told Aletihad. Boosting National Talent Developing the next generation of tech leaders is another key mission for ATRC. The goal is to cultivate Emirati engineers who not only engage with advanced technologies but also learn to create and innovate them. 'Through our NexTech programme, we have placed students at world-leading institutions like CalTech, Yale, and Manchester to embed them in frontier research. At home, we are scaling coding initiatives in public schools, training over 1,000 students in Python this year alone.' The support goes beyond education, it added. 'Our R&D platforms, like the UAE Research Map, are expanding access to research capabilities and enabling young innovators to exchange knowledge with local experts.' These platforms do not just connect, they offer the opportunity to contribute to the scientific community, build expertise, and ultimately become thought leaders in science and advanced technologies, the ATRC said. 'From Falcon to quantum breakthroughs, that's how we turn curiosity into capability.
Daily Tribune
22-05-2025
- Business
- Daily Tribune
UAE unveils new Arabic-language AI model Dubai, United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates yesterday announced a new Arabic-language artificial intelligence model, describing it as the best-performing in the region. The oil-rich Gulf state, keen to become a leader in the sector, previously unveiled Falcon in 2023 -- an open-source model developed by Abu Dhabi's Technology Innovation Institute. "We're proud to finally bring Arabic to Falcon, and prouder still that the best-performing large language model in the Arab world was built in the UAE," said Faisal Al-Bannai, secretary general of Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Research Council, which oversees the project. Falcon Arabic was trained on Arabic-language data covering various dialects across the region and matches "the performance of models up to 10 times its size", said a statement. The council also announced Falcon H1, a new model designed to cut the computing power and technical expertise typically needed to run advanced systems. During US President Donald Trump's visit to Abu Dhabi last week, the two countries signed an AI agreement that includes Emirati investment in American data centres.
Al Etihad
22-05-2025
- Business
- Al Etihad
UAE unveils most advanced Arabic-language model
22 May 2025 11:00 ABU DHABI (ALETIHAD)The UAE's Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research arm of Abu Dhabi's Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), has launched two major artificial intelligence models—Falcon Arabic, the region's most advanced Arabic-language AI model, and Falcon H1, a high-performance, low-footprint model designed for use on everyday devices and in limited-resource by Faisal Al Bannai, Advisor to the UAE President and Secretary General of ATRC, during his keynote at the Make it in the Emirates event, the launches mark a strategic move to consolidate the UAE's leadership in sovereign and accessible AI Arabic is the first Arabic model in the Falcon series and is trained on high-quality native Arabic data, covering both Modern Standard Arabic and regional dialects. Based on the Falcon 3-7B architecture, it is the best-performing Arabic language model available in the Middle East, topping the Open Arabic LLM Leaderboard. Remarkably, it matches or exceeds the performance of models up to ten times its size—proving that smart architecture can outperform raw scale.'We're proud to finally bring Arabic to Falcon,' said Al Bannai. 'And prouder still that the best-performing large language model in the Arab world was built in the UAE.'Falcon H1 introduces a new hybrid architecture that combines the strengths of Transformers and Mamba technologies. With model sizes ranging from 500 million to 34 billion parameters, it is designed for a wide spectrum of real-world applications—from edge devices to large-scale enterprise deployments. The flagship 34B version outperforms equivalent models from Meta's LLaMA and Alibaba's Qwen in both performance and efficiency.'Today, AI leadership is not about scale for the sake of scale. It's about making powerful tools useful, usable, and universal,' Al Bannai said. 'Falcon H1 reflects our commitment to delivering AI that works for everyone—not just the few.'Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO of TII, noted: 'We approached Falcon H1 not just as a research milestone but as an engineering challenge. This model is built for real-world utility, especially in settings where resources are limited but ambitions are high.'All Falcon models are open source and available on Hugging Face and under a permissive license promoting ethical AI use. TII says Falcon models have been downloaded more than 55 million times worldwide. They are already being used in real-world applications, including AgriLLM—a tool developed in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help farmers tackle climate challenges. Falcon H1 supports more than 100 languages thanks to a newly designed multilingual tokenizer, broadening its global usability. It excels in tasks involving mathematics, reasoning, coding, long-context understanding, and multilingual comprehension. Make it in the Emirates Continue full coverage Source: Aletihad - Abu Dhabi
