Abu Dhabi: The first-ever Open-Source AI Summit Abu Dhabi, organized by the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), successfully concluded in the UAE capital.
The event gathered prominent global AI researchers and industry leaders to explore the evolving landscape of open-source AI.
Hosted at The St. Regis Saadiyat Island Resort, the summit featured experts from renowned organizations such as Meta, Google DeepMind, Oxford University, Tsinghua University, and local entities including Inception Institute and TII.
The discussions spanned various critical topics, including open-source AI opportunities, accessibility, safety, ethical frameworks, governance, computational challenges, sustainability, and fostering global alliances.
The summit aligned with heightened international discourse following the Open-Source Initiative’s release of its open-source AI definition.
Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO of TII, remarked that, “The Open-Source AI Summit Abu Dhabi marked a pivotal step in creating an inclusive AI future. By uniting leading minds from around the world, we fostered international collaboration to advance innovation rooted in equity and safety. This is about more than technology—it’s about ensuring its ethical and responsible use to benefit humanity.”
Dr. Hakim Hacid, Chief Researcher at TII’s AI Cross-Center Unit and a key contributor to the Falcon LLM series, highlighted the importance of the event and stated, “At TII, our focus is on developing transparent, robust, and scalable AI systems. This summit provided a platform to engage with global experts, driving collaboration and openness to shape a responsible AI future.”
TII gained recognition as an early global leader in open-source AI, releasing Falcon 40B, a Large Language Model (LLM), in May 2023.
Falcon AI models have consistently been ranked among the top open-source LLMs worldwide by HuggingFace, the industry-standard leaderboard for AI models.