Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg has argued against allowing AI to become concentrated in the hands of companies and governments, as the Big Tech giant resumes making some of its AI models freely available to outside developers. The $1.5tn company on Monday released the underlying parameters of Muse Glimmer, a new "open" AI model that developers will be able to download and modify. Zuckerberg published an essay outlining a plan to distribute "free" and highly capable AI to "billions of people".

In an apparent attack on Google, Anthropic and Open AI, he wrote: "Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions. So if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals." The pledges mark a return to the "open" AI strategy Meta has used to distinguish itself from rivals. Meta declined to release the underlying weights of Muse Spark earlier this year, citing safety concerns.

On Monday, Meta also unveiled a $1bn fund for communities hosting its US data centres as it accelerates the infrastructure build-out needed to support those ambitions. Zuckerberg suggested the company would press on with investing in open-weight models, criticising the "closed" approach of rival labs. He gave the example of Hugging Face, which relied on open models to patch its security systems after closed models refused its requests.

Zuckerberg said Meta would place the power to review the safety of its models in the hands of its independent board of directors.