THE United Arab Emirates (UAE) is working its way closer in its ambition to become an artificial intelligence superpower, with the release of its latest generative AI models under the Falcon 2 series turning heads in the international arena.
Lighter. More Powerful. More accessible and mightier version.
This was how Abu Dhabi’s Technology Innovation Institute (TII) described its two new generative AI models under the Falcon 2 series. These models include the Falcon 2 11B, a text-based model, and Falcon 2 11B VLM, a vision-to-language model that can generate a text description of an uploaded image.
Named after the country’s national bird, the Falcon was first introduced in September 2023 and instantly became an international sensation.
At one point, it became the best open-source large language model (LLM) available in the world, outperforming some features offered by Meta and Google.
Since then, Falcon managed to gain attention from computer scientists worldwide.
The UAE aspires to be a global leader in AI by 2031 as part of its National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence.
The oil-rich nation is investing millions of dollars to accelerate its AI programs, with the advanced technology expected to contribute 14 percent or equivalent to about $97 billion of the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2030.
Just like other Arab countries, the UAE aims to reduce its reliance on oil to meet its carbon emissions targets, with data quickly becoming the new oil in the Gulf state.
