A consortium of 20 European research institutions, companies, and EuroHPC centers has launched OpenEuroLLM, an initiative to develop open-source, multilingual large language models (LLMs). Coordinated by Jan Hajič (Charles University, Czechia) and co-led by Peter Sarlin (AMD Silo AI, Finland), the project aims to provide transparent and compliant AI models for commercial and public sector applications.
The project seeks to align with Europe’s regulatory framework while ensuring that AI development remains accessible and adaptable to various needs. By collaborating with organizations such as LAION, OpenML, and open-sci, OpenEuroLLM plans to release models that support linguistic diversity and can be fine-tuned for specific industry and government use cases.
While the project emphasizes openness and accessibility, some experts have questioned its feasibility. Alek Tarkowski, co-founder of Open Future Foundation, pointed out that the 56 million EUR budget, which was not mentioned in the official announcement, raises concerns about whether a consortium of 20 institutions can effectively build competitive foundation models.
Similarly, Daniel Khachab, co-founder and CEO of Choco, criticized the initiative, stating:
20 companies building something together funded by the government is a recipe for failure. No accountability, leadership, or upside. The EU should rather deregulate and put the €56m in top-notch education.
A key aspect of OpenEuroLLM is its commitment to open-source principles, but the extent of this openness remains debatable. The project describes its models as “truly open” meaning not only open weights but also open datasets, training and testing code, and evaluation metrics. However, Alek Tarkowski added:
None of the model builders in the consortium have released models that meet these ambitious standards, and it is uncertain whether a foundation model can be built on open data alone.
The project’s reference to “compliant open-source models” also raises questions. While the AI Act defines open-source AI in terms of open-weight models, OpenEuroLLM suggests a broader approach. Whether it can meet these goals while maintaining technical competitiveness remains unclear.
OpenEuroLLM has been awarded the STEP (Strategic Technologies for Europe Platform) seal and is funded by the European Commission under the Digital Europe Programme. The consortium begins its work on February 1st, 2025. The project’s success will depend on whether it can effectively coordinate its research efforts and deliver models that balance openness, regulatory compliance, and technological performance.
