European AI leaders Aleph Alpha and Silo ink deal to deliver ‘sovereign AI’

Two of Europe’s emerging leaders in artificial intelligence have signed a deal to spread “sovereign AI” across the continent.

Germany’s Aleph Alpha and Finland’s Silo AI announced the partnership today. The duo plan to create a “one-stop-solution” for European industrial firms exploring generative AI.

Their collaboration brings together distinctive expertise. Aleph Alpha has been described a European rival to OpenAI, but with a stronger focus on data protection, security, and transparency. The company also claims to operate Europe’s fastest commercial AI data centre.

Founded in 2019, the firm has become Germany’s leading AI startup. In November, it raised $500mn in a funding round backed by Bosch, SAP, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Germany businesse

Silo AI, meanwhile, calls itself “Europe’s largest private AI lab.” The Helsinki-based startup provides custom LLMs through a SaaS subscription. Use cases range from smart devices and cities to autonomous vehicles and industry 4.0.

Silo also specialises in building LLMs for low-resource languages, which lack the linguistic data typically needed to train AI models. By the end of this year, the company plans to cover every official EU language.

The push for sovereign AI in Europe

One thing both startups have in common is advocating for European AI sovereignty. Jonas Andrulis, co-founder and CEO of Aleph Alpha, said they’re “united” in this mission.

Peter Sarlin, co-founder and CEO of Silo AI, echoed the sentiment.

“We are delighted to partner with a company that shares our values on sovereign AI, and I am especially excited about our mutual commitment to advancing open-source models that support European languages,” he said.