Meta Releases Scaled-Down AI Model Consumers Can Use at Home

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(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc. introduced a new AI model that’s light enough to run on a single computer, allowing users to download and customize the technology.

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The new Muse Glimmer is a distilled version of the company’s Muse Spark 1.2 model, designed with a focus on efficiency to minimize system requirements, Meta said on Monday. At 30 billion parameters, the Muse Glimmer is “small enough” to need only one graphics card to power its work, which will primarily involve agent-like artificial intelligence tasks such as schedule management and file organization, according to Meta.

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The weights, or values that help the AI system make decisions, for Muse Glimmer will be available on Hugging Face. Meta intends to make the weights for a version of the more powerful Muse Spark available as well. There is no fee for download, though users would bear their own computing costs. The move to release these AI models under a permissive license mirrors competition in China, where startups like DeepSeek and Moonshot, along with internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., have adopted the practice to attract the largest number of users.

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“Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it,” Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said in a wide-ranging essay with policy proposals on Monday. “This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential.”

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Contrasting Meta’s approach to that of US rivals “focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions,” Zuckerberg emphasized Meta is creating “personal superintelligence for everyone.”

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The company is in a global race to deliver AI breakthroughs and benefits that would eventually pay off lavish spending on hardware and data centers to develop the technology. Along with US peers Amazon.com Inc., Alphabet Inc. and Microsoft Corp., Meta has committed more than $2 trillion to expanding its capabilities — and developing AI models and tools that entice people to use it over those rivals will help the company secure long-term revenue. The company began charging for developer access for its Muse Spark 1.1 model for the first time last month.

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Meta is also developing plans for a cloud infrastructure business that will sell access to AI computing power and models, along the lines of Amazon Web Services, though the lack of detail on the plan from Zuckerberg has frustrated investors who worry about the company achieving a return on investment.

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Menlo Park, California-based Meta said on Monday that it intends to set up a $1 billion fund to invest in US communities where it owns and operates data centers. The runaway spending by hyperscalers like Meta and Google has been met with resistance in many locations across the US as detractors protest against data centers’ use of land, energy and water.

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—With assistance from Kurt Wagner.

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(Updates with Mark Zuckerberg quotes and context from fourth paragraph.)

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