'Grateful to Satya': Mark Zuckerberg announces Llama 2 launch in Insta post as Microsoft & Meta collaborate on new ChatGPT rival

It's safe to say that the artificial intelligence (AI) era is here to stay. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his Microsoft counterpart Satya Nadella have joined forces to introduce the world to Llama 2 (Large Language Model), the next generation of AI.

What makes this collaboration even more intriguing is the decision to release Llama 2 as an open-source technology.

This new partnership between Meta & Microsoft was announced by Zuckerberg on Tuesday in a power-packed Instagram post.


The picture shared on Zuckerberg's handle captured the two tech titans dressed in blue, smiling for the camera as they celebrated the collaboration.

His post read, "Today, we're open sourcing Llama 2 with our preferred partner @microsoft. This gives researchers and businesses access to build with our next generation large language model as the foundation of their work. Grateful to Satya and our teams for making this happen."

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A post shared by Mark Zuckerberg (@zuck)

Meta's Llama 2 AI system represents a leap in large language models, a domain previously dominated by competitors like Google and Microsoft.

The release of OpenAI's ChatGPT had prompted a surge in demand for 'generative AI' tools that can create content across various media forms.

While Microsoft had invested significantly in OpenAI, their partnership with Meta indicates a strategic diversification of AI endeavours.

Additionally, Meta has said that the Llama 2 technology will be made accessible through Amazon Web Services and AI startup Hugging Face, marking a significant stride towards inclusivity in AI development.

In a Facebook post, Zuckerberg highlighted Meta's tradition of open-sourcing its AI infrastructure, citing previous initiatives like PyTorch, a widely-used machine-learning framework. This approach fosters innovation, safety, and security in the AI ecosystem, allowing for greater collaboration among developers.

“Meta has a long history of open sourcing our infrastructure and AI work,” Zuckerberg said. “This has helped us build better products by driving progress across the industry.”

This partnership announcement was initially made during Microsoft's annual event for business customers.