TII's Falcon 2 11B: Propelling Abu Dhabi's AI Dominance

The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a research arm of the Abu Dhabi government, has unveiled Falcon 2 11B, the latest iteration of its artificial intelligence model.

This updated version, according to a senior official, surpasses competitors and solidifies Abu Dhabi's position as a significant contender in the global AI landscape.

Falcon, akin to renowned models like OpenAI's GPT and Google's Gemini, serves as a foundational component for various generative AI applications, including chatbots and image generation.

Launched initially in 2023 as an open-source platform, Falcon has garnered widespread adoption due to its accessible code.

Falcon 2 11B now stands as a formidable contender, boasting superior performance compared to Meta Platforms Inc.'s latest open-source model and rivalling Gemini in certain benchmarks.

Faisal Al Bannai, the secretary general of the Advanced Technology Research Council, expressed pride in Falcon's achievements, noting its superior performance relative to industry giants, achieved with significantly fewer resources.

The adoption of Falcon has been notable, with the first version accumulating over 43 million downloads by the first quarter of the year, according to TII.

In comparison, Meta reported 170 million downloads for its recent Llama model.

Moreover, Falcon 2 introduces 'vision-to-language capabilities,' enabling seamless conversion of images into text—a feature critical for numerous business applications identified by Abu Dhabi.

This new version supports multiple languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, and Portuguese, enhancing its versatility and applicability on a global scale.

Source: Gulf News