Apple Launches On-Device OpenELM Models 

Apple is enhancing its devices with deeper AI integration, with the release of Open-source Efficient Language Models (OpenELM). 

These LLMs are designed to operate on-device without the need to rely on cloud servers, a move that shows Apple’s commitment to privacy and efficiency. They are now available on the startup, Hugging Face, a platform that shares AI code and models within the community. 

According to a published research paper, the OpenELM project contains eight models in total, with four of these models pre-trained using CoreNet library, while the other four are customized.  

The Big Tech giant’s method is based on a layer-wise scaling strategy that aims to enhance both accuracy and efficiency in natural language processing tasks. 

For instance, when given a parameter of around one billion parameters, the accuracy of OpenELM increases by 2.36% over OLMo, while it needs only half the pre-training tokens. 

In contrast to older methods that used to provide only model weighs and inference code, the iPhone maker moves a step further by offering a full framework dedicated to training and assessing of the language models on public datasets available. This includes training logs, multiple checkpoints, and pre-training configurations, providing researchers and developers with a comprehensive toolkit for further advancements in the field. 

The U.S tech giant stated that the goal behind the launching of the OpenELM models is to enhance the research community and make the investigation of risks, data, and model partialities easier.  

This initiative aligns with Apple’s efforts to attract top talents to its team. The transparency adopted when sharing information also opens more horizons for more research papers, which was not the case under the company’s secretive policies. 

While the California-based giant has not yet integrated these AI capabilities into its devices, speculations suggest that the upcoming iOS 18 update is expected to have some new AI features, potentially using on-device large language models for enhanced privacy. 

IOS 18 is set to be officially launched between September 16 till 23, following its iPhone 16 launch event of September 9-17, 2024. 

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