31 August 2023; MEMO: An artificial intelligence group linked to the United Arab Emirates has unveiled what it has called the “world’s highest quality” Arabic AI software, as the Gulf state drives the adoption of generative AI in the area.
The open-source, bilingual model known as Jais is available for the 400 million-plus Arabic speakers in the world. It was developed by G42, an AI firm chaired by UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan; Abu Dhabi’s Mohamed Bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI); and California-based AI company Cerebras.
The UAE previously built the open-source large language model (LLM) Falcon at the state-run Technology Innovation Institute in Abu Dhabi using over 300 Nvidia chips. Earlier this year, Cerebras signed a $100 million deal to provide nine supercomputers to G42, one of the largest ever such contracts.
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“The UAE has been a pioneer in this space [AI], we are ahead of the game, hopefully. We see this as a global race,” the Financial Times reported G42 CEO Andrew Jackson as saying. “Why shouldn’t the Arabic-speaking community have an LLM?”
The UAE’s ambitious goal of becoming an AI leader in the Gulf has, however, sparked concern about the potential misuse by autocratic leaders.
Top level existing LLMs like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Google’s PaLM and Meta’s LLaMA understand and generate Arabic, which has been described as “heavily diluted”.
Jais is designed with greater cultural and regional context, said MBZUAI Acting Provost Timothy Baldwin. He added that it has “guardrails” on “cultural and religious sensibilities.” Extensive testing removed “harmful” or “insensitive” content.
Jais draws on media, social media and code in both modern standard Arabic and regional dialects. “Jais is clearly better than anything out there in Arabic and, in English, comparisons show we are competitive or even slightly better across different tasks than existing models,” said Baldwin.
Named after the UAE’s highest mountain, Jais was trained in Abu Dhabi in 21 days using a supercomputer.
