A start-up in Linz is setting its sights on something big: developing the most powerful European AI language model. We are talking about “Talos“, a “Large Language Model” (LLM), similar to language models behind ChatGPT or Gemini. It processes requests, so-called prompts, and generates responses based on them. Behind Talos is the Linz start-up “Ablative AI“, founded by Florian Zimmermann and Julian Mauerkirchner as part of the “LIT Open Innovation Center”. Johannes Kepler University.
The language model is intended to be used in particular for applications in sensitive areas such as finance, insurance and public administration. They require very careful handling of their customers’ personal data. Another advantage for companies should be the European infrastructure: Talos is run exclusively on European high-performance computers, so-called “supercomputers“, trained and operated.
Independent of the USA
“We quickly encountered the hurdle that many companies we wanted to do business with did not want to use a model from the USA,” said Mauerkirchner, CFO of Ablatic AI. Companies would prefer to keep their data in Europe, also for fear of it being passed on to third parties. Regulated industries such as public administration, banking, insurance and healthcare also have particularly high requirements for data protection, IT security and the handling of sensitive data.
To meet European privacy and security standards, Ablatic AI tried French AI company “Mistral AI” as an alternative to US models. However, these were not powerful enough for the start-up’s requirements, says Mauerkirchner. Ablatic therefore decided to develop its own language model. However, this requires enormous computing power.
About the initiative “AI Factory Austria“, the start-up received access to European supercomputers on which Talos could be trained. The initiative supports start-ups and industry in implementing AI projects. Especially for companies that work with sensitive data, it is crucial that the data can be processed within Europe. “Companies must ensure that their data remains secure in Europe and is not passed on,” explains Daniel Pepl from AI Factory Austria.
In addition, according to Mauerkirchner, Ablatic promises never to train Talos with customer data. Instead, commercial or proprietary data sets were used. In addition, as with human short-term memory, prompts are not stored by Talos after they have been answered.
Market launch at the end of August
In the beta testing phase, Talos was tested by 100 companies. The Linz AI language model will officially launch at the end of August. In the pilot phase, it was mostly software companies that tested the model. These companies integrate Talos into their existing applications in order to then offer them to end customers such as banks.