Silo AI releases Viking on Google Cloud: A New Open Large Language Model for Nordic Languages and Code

The new Viking model from Silo AI, hosted and served from Google Cloud, represents a significant step towards democratizing access to powerful AI tools for all Nordic languages.

Silo AI, in collaboration with the University of Turku's TurkuNLP research group, recently announced the release of Viking, a new open large language model (LLM) designed to empower all Nordic languages, English, and programming languages. On a path to release models covering all European languages, this groundbreaking initiative is set to transform the AI landscape in the Nordic region and beyond. 

Viking unlocks significant opportunities in the Nordic region. The model has been natively trained on the local languages adding more nuance,  depth, and cultural understanding into the model.

Viking is the successor to the Finnish, English, and code model Poro and represents a significant leap forward in natural language processing capabilities. Trained on a massive dataset of 2 trillion tokens, Viking comes in three sizes (7B, 13B and 33B) and leverages Google Cloud's cutting-edge infrastructure to achieve unprecedented performance and efficiency. This collaboration with Google Cloud is, and has been, instrumental in accelerating the development and deployment of Viking, ensuring its accessibility to a wide range of users and applications.

Key Features of Viking:

• Multilingual Proficiency: Viking excels in understanding and generating text in all Nordic languages (Danish, English, Finnish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Swedish), English, and various programming languages.
• State-of-the-Art Performance: Viking has demonstrated best-in-class performance in low-resource languages without compromising its capabilities in English and programming languages.
• Cultural Sensitivity: The model has been carefully trained to be sensitive to local values and cultures, ensuring that it serves as a bridge rather than a barrier in digital communication.
• Open Source: Viking is released under the Apache 2.0 License, making it freely available for both commercial and research use, fostering innovation and collaboration across the AI community.

"We are thrilled to unveil Viking, a testament to our commitment to democratizing AI and empowering linguistic diversity," said Peter Sarlin, CEO and co-founder of Silo AI. "By harnessing the power of Google Cloud's infrastructure, we have been able to not only push the boundaries of multilingual models but also make it accessible to everyone."

“We’re happy to accelerate the development and deployment of Viking and help unlock opportunities in the Nordic languages,” said Eva Fors, Managing Director, Google Cloud Nordic Region. “We believe the future of AI will be open, so we’re providing access to the best of Google’s infrastructure, AI products and platforms to empower organizations to chart their course with generative AI,”

Viking is positioned to support various sectors, including education, healthcare, customer service, and content creation. Its ability to understand and generate text in multiple languages opens up new possibilities for cross-lingual communication and collaboration. In addition to the SiloGen platform, the Viking models will now also be available through Google Cloud's Vertex AI Model Garden.

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