IBM and Meta Launch Global AI Alliance with Dozens of Partners and Collaborators

• By Kate Lucariello
• 12/13/23

IBM and Meta have announced the launch of an international AI Alliance, consisting of developers, researchers, and adopters from across the industry and the world to advance the use of AI in an open, safe, and responsible manner. Over 50 members and collaborators worldwide have joined this effort.

According to IBM's release, "While there are many individual companies, startups, researchers, governments, and others who are committed to open science and open technologies and want to participate in the new wave of AI innovation, more collaboration and information sharing will help the community innovate faster and more inclusively, and identify specific risks and mitigate those risks before putting a product into the world."

The Alliance says its goal is to ensure "scientific rigor, trust, safety, security, diversity, and economic competitiveness" by pooling resources to "address safety concerns while providing a platform for sharing and developing solutions that fit the needs of researchers, developers, and adopters around the world."

The website's home page notes that members and collaborators represent $80 billion in research and development, 400,000 students supported by academic institutions, and 100,000 staff members.

The Alliance will begin by forming member-driven working groups, establishing a governing board and technical oversight committee, and working with existing initiatives from governments, nonprofit, and civil society organizations.

The Alliance's objectives are to:

• Develop and deploy benchmarks and evaluation standards, tools, and other resources for responsible development of AI systems;
• Promote capable and open multilingual, multimodal, and scientific foundation models to address challenges such as climate, education, and more;
• Assist development of an AI hardware accelerator ecosystem by "boosting contributions and adoption of essential enabling software technology";
• Support educator and student research efforts to contribute to AI model and tool projects;
• Educate the public about the benefits, risks, solutions, and regulations concerning AI use; and
• Develop initiatives and host events showcasing how members use AI responsibly and beneficially.

"The progress we continue to witness in AI is a testament to open innovation and collaboration across communities of creators, scientists, academics and business leaders," said Arvind Krishna, IBM Chairman and CEO. "This is a pivotal moment in defining the future of AI."

"The AI Alliance brings together researchers, developers and companies to share tools and knowledge that can help us all make progress whether models are shared openly or not," said Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs. "We're looking forward to working with partners to advance the state-of-the-art in AI and help everyone build responsibly."

Participating U.S. higher education institutions include Cornell University, Dartmouth College, New York University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, UC Berkeley College of Computing, Data Science, and Society, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, The University of Notre Dame, The University of Texas at Austin, and Yale University.

To learn more, visit the Alliance's Learn and FAQ page and Focus Areas page.