Social media giant Meta announced on Monday that its open source artificial intelligence models will now be available for federal use through the General Services Administration’s OneGov strategy.
The agreement will provide agencies with access to Meta’s ‘Llama’ models, which are freely accessible to use. GSA said it focused on verifying that Meta’s models comply with federal requirements and can be consistently used across the government.
“America is leading on AI and we want to make sure all Americans see the benefit of AI innovation through better, more efficient public services,” Meta Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. “With Llama, America’s government agencies can better serve people.”
GSA and Meta said that the publicly accessible nature of Llama means that government customers can now build and deploy AI applications at significantly reduced costs.
The agreement was struck as part of GSA’s OneGov initiative, which seeks to provide federal agencies with discounted rates for tech and software services by treating the government as one customer.
“Thanks to Meta and its commitment to advancing public sector services, our federal partners now have easier access to Llama and open source AI, which offers unique benefits for federal agencies and government use cases,” Federal Acquisition Service Commissioner Josh Gruenbaum said in a statement.
GSA has negotiated over a dozen similar OneGov agreements with tech firms since April, including with OpenAI, ServiceNow, Microsoft and Salesforce.
Even though many of the OneGov deals are temporary and offer discounted services for periods of months or years, GSA officials said earlier this month that they hope the initiative will lead to lasting partnerships with the tech sector.
