After China’s move, Meta opens up Llama models for US national security applications

Meta is making its Llama series of AI models available to US government agencies and contractors for national security after reports that China reworked the open-source tool for military use.

Top Chinese research institutions linked to the People's Liberation Army (PLA) have used Meta's publicly available Llama model to develop an AI tool for potential military applications, Reuters reported last week.

Beijing has exploited the fact that Meta’s models are open source. Besides, even though the models cannot be used for military or warfare use, Meta has limited ways of enforcing those terms.

In response, Meta told Reuters that any use of its models by the PLA is unauthorized. But the tech giant has probably decided this wasn’t enough and said it was making the Llama models available for US national security applications.

“We are pleased to confirm that we’re making Llama available to US government agencies, including those that are working on defense and national security applications, and private sector partners supporting their work,” Meta wrote in a blog post.

The tech firm said it has partnered with companies including Accenture, Amazon Web Services, Anduril, Booz Allen, Databricks, Deloitte, IBM, Leidos, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Oracle, Palantir, Scale AI, and Snowflake to bring Llama to government agencies.

According to Meta, Oracle is using Llama to process aircraft maintenance documents, and the model is helping Scale AI to support specific national security team missions.

Lockheed Martin has incorporated Llama into its AI Factory, accelerating a variety of use cases such as code generation, data analysis, and enhancing business processes.

As aforementioned, Meta normally forbids developers from using Llama for projects related to military, espionage, or warfare missions. But the company has made an exception in this case, it told Bloomberg.

“Responsible and ethical uses of open source AI models like Llama will not only support the prosperity and security of the United States, they will also help establish US open source standards in the global race for AI leadership,” Meta said.

The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, revealed Meta’s intention to work with the US government during his opening remarks for the firm’s Q3 earnings call last week.

Both Zuckerberg and a Meta spokesperson, who was quoted by The Verge, chose not to mention that Llama will be used for US national security applications. It’s also still not clear whether Meta will be getting paid for this sort of collaboration.