MBZUAI Strengthens Research Ties with France’s École Polytechnique

Summary

MBZUAI and École Polytechnique are deepening research collaboration through a Collaborative Research Agreement, focusing on large language models, foundation models for reasoning, and AI applications in biology, health, and AI safety. The partnership builds on a previous MoU and Scholars Exchange Program Agreement between the two institutions. MBZUAI's France Lab has developed Atlas-Chat, a family of open-source LLMs for the Moroccan Arabic dialect Darija, with models including Atlas-Chat-2B and Atlas-Chat-9B. Why it matters: This collaboration strengthens the AI ecosystems in both France and the UAE, fostering joint research efforts and supporting the next generation of AI researchers and innovators, with a specific focus on Arabic NLP.