Meta's Llama large language models have experienced unprecedented growth, solidifying their position as the leading open-source AI models in the industry.
Meta reports that Llama models are approaching 350 million downloads to date, marking a tenfold increase from the previous year. In the past month alone, Llama models were downloaded more than 20 million times on Hugging Face, the popular AI model hub.
Nick Clegg, President of Global Affairs at Meta, highlighted the significance of this growth: "The success of Llama is made possible through the power of open source. By making our Llama models openly available, we've seen a vibrant and diverse AI ecosystem come to life."
The company also revealed that Llama usage by token volume across major cloud service providers more than doubled from May through July 2024, coinciding with the release of Llama 3.1. For some of Meta's largest cloud partners, monthly usage grew tenfold from January to July 2024.
Llama's rapid adoption has attracted attention from industry giants. Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of AI and Data at AWS, noted, "We've been excited to see the uptake for Llama 3.1 from customers across both Amazon SageMaker and Amazon Bedrock."
The Llama ecosystem now boasts over 60,000 derivative models on Hugging Face, with major enterprises like AT&T, Goldman Sachs, and Zoom integrating Llama into their operations. AT&T reported a nearly 33% improvement in customer care engagements using Llama-based AI.
As Llama continues to gain traction, Meta remains committed to open-source AI development. The company views this approach as crucial for fostering innovation and ensuring the benefits of AI are widely accessible.
This explosive growth of Llama models underscores the increasing importance of open-source AI in driving technological advancement and industry transformation.