Portugal launches first open-source AI model, joining Europe's sovereignty push

By Sergio Goncalves

LISBON, July 1 (Reuters) - Portugal launched on Wednesday its first open-source artificial intelligence model, joining a growing push across Europe for greater AI sovereignty and reduced reliance on U.S. providers.

The move follows similar initiatives in other European countries, including France and Germany, where governments have backed home-grown AI companies such as Mistral AI and Aleph Alpha to provide alternatives to models developed by U.S. firms including OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.

Rather than being used directly by the public, the large language foundation model is intended as a base technology that public institutions, companies, universities and researchers can use to build AI-powered applications tailored to their needs.

The Portuguese model, dubbed Amalia in honour of the late fado icon Amalia Rodrigues, was developed by a consortium of Portuguese universities and research institutions, with government backing and €5.5 million ($6.26 million) in EU recovery funds.

"Europe's strategic autonomy is today, perhaps more than ever, tied to AI. This model will enable us to face the coming decades with greater sovereignty and less dependence," Prime Minister Luis Montenegro told the launch event.

He said Amalia would help boost productivity across the public and private sectors, including banking, insurance, telecommunications and industry, while ensuring security, adding: "We will continue to invest heavily in this project."

The Amalia large language model, along with its training dataset and source code, is released under an open-source licence.

Initial applications include a virtual guide for Portugal's museums, decision-support tools for the Portuguese Navy, an AI-powered teaching assistant for lesson planning, and a digital assistant to help the state deliver public services to citizens.

Amalia also leverages Portugal's investment in high-performance computing, including access to the Deucalion and MareNostrum 5 supercomputers, giving it the computing power needed to train and run large AI models.

($1 = 0.8784 euros)

(Reporting by Sergio Goncalves; Editing by David Latona and)