The Ministry for Digital Transformation and the Public Service and IBM signed a Memorandum of Understanding this Friday to promote the national artificial intelligence (AI) agenda and create native foundational models in the Spanish language and co-official languages.
The collaboration aims to promote collaboration in the field of AI and supercomputing with AI, as well as advance the development and practical deployment of open, ethical and responsible generative AI technologies in Spain.
It also seeks to share the vision of creating the leading set of foundational models, which will include both large language models (LLM) and small language models (SLM), native Spanish and co-official languages, as detailed in a press release.
The creation of models designed entirely in Spanish (the second most spoken language in the world) will improve the sustainability of AI by reducing bias and providing competitive alternatives for the Spanish industry.
The document was signed this Friday in La Moncloa by the Minister for Digital Transformation and the Public Service, José Luis Escrivá, and the senior vice president and director of IBM Research, Darío Gil. The meeting was also attended by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who highlighted that agreements like this demonstrate Spain’s commitment to accelerating the ethical and responsible use of AI, particularly in the public sector, with great impact on productivity for numerous sectors of the economy and in the strategic autonomy of Europe
Leveraging IBM’s open source AI framework, communities will be able to shape and contribute to LLMs in Spanish, which will also include the co-official languages (Catalan, Basque, Galician and Valencian).
Both parties understand that a coordinated government approach will facilitate both the widespread use of AI in national, regional and local economies, as well as the timely resources necessary to create competitive advantages in a rapidly evolving, AI-driven business environment.
This includes investment in human capital (training and tools) and the adoption of community-driven AI that ensures that the productivity and economic benefits can benefit the entire fabric of Spain’s economy, from SMEs to enterprises. large companies and the public sector.
“AI places us on the threshold of a new industrial revolution, with a very significant potential impact in terms of productivity gains for a large number of economic sectors and in the provision of better public services to our citizens”, and therefore ” The Government of Spain is promoting a useful and ethical development of the opportunities offered by this technology,” said Minister José Luis Escrivá, who also highlighted the experience, knowledge and resources of IBM, which make it an “excellent partner” to accompany the Government in its vision.
For his part, Darío Gil has expressed that “IBM shares this vision of accelerating the AI strategy of the Government of Spain and being the national AI partner for Spain.” He has also indicated that the multinational will take advantage of the investments it makes throughout the entire chain of this technology to boost the full potential of AI technologies, promote the ethical use of AI and promote sustainable growth in Spain and Spanish-speaking countries. .