Apple’s Releases 4 New Open-Source AI Models that Run On-Device

Apr. 25, 2024

Apple doesn’t share much about its Generative AI plans. Now, with the release of a family of Open-source large language models, it seems the Cupertino tech giant wants to make AI run locally on Apple devices. Apple’s LLMs, which the company calls OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), are designed to run on-device rather than on cloud servers. These LLMs are available on theHugging Face Hub, a central platform for sharing AI code and datasets.

In the testing, Apple observes that OpenELM delivers similar performance as the other open language models, but the former has less training data.Image Courtesy: Hugging Face

As shown in thewhite paper,there are eight OpenELM models in total. Four models were pre-trained using the CoreNet library, while the other four are instruction-tuned models. To improve the overall accuracy and efficiency, Apple uses a layer-wise scaling strategy in these open-source LLMs.

“To this end, we release OpenELM, a state-of-the-art open language model. OpenELM uses a layer-wise scaling strategy to efficiently allocate parameters within each layer of the transformer model, leading to enhanced accuracy. For example, with a parameter budget of approximately one billion parameters, OpenELM exhibits a 2.36% improvement in accuracy compared to OLMo while requiring 2× fewer pre-training tokens.“- Apple

Apple didn’t just provide the final trained model. Rather, it has also provided code, training logs, and multiple iterations of the model. The project researchers are optimistic that it will accelerate advancements and deliver “trustworthy results” within the realm of natural language AI.

“Diverging from prior practices that only provide model weights and inference code, and pre-train on private datasets, our release includes the complete framework for training and evaluation of the language model on publicly available datasets, including training logs, multiple checkpoints, and pre-training configurations. We also release code to convert models to MLX library for inference and fine-tuning on Apple devices. This comprehensive release aims to empower and strengthen the open research community, paving the way for future open research endeavors.”– Apple

Apple further added that the release of the OpenELM models will “empower and enrich the open research community” with state-of-the-art language models. The open-source models allow researchers to explore potential risks, data, and biases inherent in the models. The models are ready for developer use. They can use these open-source LLMs as-is or make required modifications.

Back in February, Apple’s CEOTim Cook teased that Generative AI features are comingto Apple devices later this year. Sometime after that, he reiterated that the company is working hard to deliverground-breaking AI experiences.

Well, Apple has released several several other AI models previously. Unfortunately, it hasn’t brought AI capabilities to its devices yet. That said, theupcoming iOS 18is expected to include a suite of new AI features and the OpenELM release might be the latest chunk of Apple’s behind-the-scenes preparation.

Recently, Mark Gurman also reported that iOS 18 AI features will be largely fueled by anon-device large language modelfor privacy and speed benefits. Well, we will get to know everything when Apple announces its iOS 18 and other software upgrades at its WWDC on June 10.