Rise of New Open-Source AI Model Sparks Startup Acquisition Talks

In recent weeks, open-source software funded by the United Arab Emirates burst on the artificial intelligence scene as one of the most promising challengers to proprietary large-language models developed by OpenAI and Google.

The value of the UAE-backed software, known as Falcon, became clear when one of the key researchers behind it was hired by prominent AI startup Hugging Face, according to the researcher’s Twitter profile. Hugging Face, which operates a code repository for AI practitioners, recently discussed acquiring a roughly 20-person startup where that researcher and at least two other Falcon contributors worked, according to a person with direct knowledge of the situation.