A Canadian-backed open source effort

Mila and Mozilla announced the initiative at ALL IN, described by the organizations as Canada’s largest AI and technology event. The project aims to create an open source AI foundation layer that lets organizations and institutions own and operate advanced AI systems locally, while retaining control of their technology and data.

The Government of Canada has announced its support for the work and provided the initial $5 million investment. Mila will lead technical delivery and coordination, while Mozilla will contribute technical expertise. Hypertec is committing an additional $1 million in first-year funding to accelerate initial Canadian deployments on Hypertec hardware.

Making local AI easier to operate

The initiative is focused on the practical engineering required to move open source AI models into production. Mila and Mozilla say that using an open source model is not usually the main obstacle. The larger challenge is building a secure, reliable system that connects to an organization’s existing tools and data, and that can be maintained without a large engineering team or months of development.

The proposed foundation layer is intended to provide a ready-to-use package that businesses and other organizations can run privately on infrastructure they control or select themselves. Rather than relying entirely on proprietary AI services with pay-per-use costs, organizations would be able to operate open source models and tools against their own data.

Open standards and a reference implementation

The project will have two main components. The first is an open standard, published as interface contracts, that allows different parts of an AI stack to be replaced with improved alternatives. The second is a working reference implementation that organizations can install on their own machines or chosen infrastructure.

The reference system is intended to support the models and controls selected by each organization, while including governance and access control from the outset. Mila and Mozilla say this combination of standards and implementation could make it easier for open source AI systems to be built and adopted by organizations of different sizes and types.

Potential uses for businesses and institutions

A small manufacturer, for example, could use the system as a private assistant for employees. It could search internal manuals, procedures and previous project files, help staff draft reports or answer technical questions, and assist software teams with writing and improving code.

Because the system is designed to run locally, the manufacturer could keep proprietary information and other data within its own environment. Mila and Mozilla also say that using open source AI on open source tools could reduce costs for many routine business tasks by avoiding a commercial provider charge for every request. Lowering the technical effort needed to deploy and maintain such systems is central to the project.

Partners and next milestones

Mila and Mozilla are inviting companies, research institutions, funders, governments and developers to participate. Mila says its work will draw on a community of nearly 2,000 researchers and professionals, while Mozilla brings 25 years of experience supporting open infrastructure used by others.

Hypertec will work with the two organizations to help move the project from research and reference implementation toward adoption by Canadian businesses and institutions. The company’s role is intended to provide a private and cost-effective deployment path while giving organizations greater control over their data and technology.

Mila and Mozilla say they have spent the past six months designing the architecture, assigning open source components to different layers and testing the system end to end. They expect to publish working reference implementations for enterprise, government and public-interest use cases within six months. Their longer-term ambition is to make open source AI easy to adopt anywhere and by anyone within two years.

Sources

• Mozilla BlogMila and Mozilla announce new initiative to build trustworthy open source AI for everyone, with Canadian government support