Latin America Unveils Latam-GPT: A Regional AI Model for Diverse Cultures and Languages

Santiago, Chile (Reuters) - A dozen Latin American nations are collaborating to launch Latam-GPT in September, a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence language model designed to understand the region's diverse cultures and linguistic nuances, Chilean officials announced on Tuesday. The open-source project, led by Chile's state-run National Center for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA) in collaboration with over 30 regional institutions, aims to significantly increase the adoption and accessibility of AI across Latin America. Chilean Science Minister Aisen Etcheverry described the project as "a democratizing element for AI," envisioning its application in schools and hospitals with a model that reflects the local culture and language. Developed in January 2023, Latam-GPT seeks to overcome the inaccuracies and performance limitations of global AI models that are predominantly trained on English. Officials said that it is meant to be the core technology for developing applications like chatbots, rather than a direct competitor to consumer products like ChatGPT. A key goal of the project is preserving Indigenous languages, with an initial translator already developed for Rapa Nui, the native language of Easter Island. The project plans to extend this to other Indigenous languages for applications like virtual public service assistants and personalized education systems. The model is based on Llama 3 AI technology and is trained using a regional network of computers, including facilities at Chile's University of Tarapaca and cloud-based systems. Regional development bank CAF and Amazon Web Services have supported the project. While currently lacking a dedicated budget, CENIA head Alvaro Soto hopes that demonstrating the system's capabilities will attract more funding.