Switzerland Launches Apertus, a Fully Open AI Model for Research and Industry
A group of Swiss institutions has released Apertus, a new large language model (LLM) designed to advance research, education, and commercial applications. Built by EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), Apertus is entirely open, with architecture, training data, and documentation publicly available.
The model comes in two versions — an 8-billion parameter and a 70-billion parameter version — both licensed for unrestricted use in research, education, and commercial projects. Apertus can be accessed on Hugging Face or via Swisscom, which is deploying it on its sovereign AI platform.
A Blueprint for Trustworthy AI
“With this release, we aim to provide a blueprint for how a trustworthy, sovereign, and inclusive AI model can be developed,” said Martin Jaggi, Professor of Machine Learning at EPFL. Regular updates will be managed by engineers and researchers from CSCS, ETH Zurich, and EPFL.
Thomas Schulthess, Director of CSCS, added that Apertus is “a driver of innovation and a means of strengthening AI expertise in research, society and industry.” He emphasized that the project aims to create long-term infrastructure, rather than a one-time technology transfer.
Multilingual and Inclusive Design
Apertus was trained on 15 trillion tokens across 1,000+ languages, with 40% of its dataset in non-English content. It includes underrepresented languages such as Swiss German and Romansh, making it one of the most inclusive LLMs to date.
“Apertus is built for the public good,” said Imanol Schlag, technical lead and Research Scientist at ETH Zurich. “It is the first of its kind to embody multilingualism, transparency, and compliance as foundational design principles.”
Real-World Deployment and Access
Developers will be able to test Apertus during Swiss {ai} Weeks, running until October 5, 2025, with access provided through a Swisscom-hosted interface. Business customers of Swisscom can already use the model, while international users will gain access via the Public AI Inference Utility.
“Currently, Apertus is the leading public AI model: a model built by public institutions, for the public interest,” said Joshua Tan, Lead Maintainer of the Public AI Inference Utility. “It is our best proof yet that AI can be a form of public infrastructure like highways, water, or electricity.”
Commitment to Transparency and Compliance
The release follows strict data protection standards, Swiss copyright law, and the EU AI Act’s transparency rules. The training dataset consisted only of publicly available information, filtered to exclude personal data and unwanted content.
Antoine Bosselut, Professor at EPFL and Co-Lead of the Swiss AI Initiative, described the release as “the beginning of a journey, a long-term commitment to open, trustworthy, and sovereign AI foundations.” Planned updates include domain-specific versions for law, health, climate, and education.
Join thousands of practitioners at ODSC AI West 2025, the leading applied data science conference. Gain hands-on training in generative AI, LLMs, RAG, AI Safety, and more through expert-led workshops and bootcamps. Explore cutting-edge tools in the AI Expo Hall, connect with industry leaders, and customize your experience with flexible 1- to 4-day passes. Don’t miss this chance to expand your AI skills and network — register now to secure your spot.
