The Technology Innovation Institute (TII), a premier applied research center under Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), has introduced Falcon 3, the latest version of its open-source large language model (LLM) series. This revolutionary release sets new performance benchmarks for small LLMs and enhances the accessibility of cutting-edge artificial intelligence by enabling its efficient operation on lightweight infrastructures, including laptops.
Falcon 3 boasts superior reasoning abilities and refined fine-tuning capabilities, making it a more powerful and user-friendly AI model. It is designed to democratize access to high-performance AI, offering models that are both powerful and efficient. Trained on a staggering 14 trillion tokens—more than double the 5.5 trillion of its predecessor—Falcon 3 achieves superior performance across multiple benchmarks. It ranks among the top global models capable of running on a single GPU. Upon launch, Falcon 3 claimed the top spot on Hugging Face’s global third-party LLM leaderboard, surpassing other open-source models of similar size, including Meta’s Llama variants. Notably, the Falcon 3-10B model leads its category, outperforming all models under 13 billion parameters.
Faisal Al Bannai, Secretary General of ATRC and Adviser to the UAE President for Strategic Research and Advanced Technology Affairs, emphasized the transformative impact of AI. “Today, we continue our commitment to the AI community, especially the open-source sector, with the release of Falcon 3,” he said. “This launch builds on the success of Falcon 2 and marks a significant step towards the next generation of AI models. Our goal remains to ensure that these powerful tools remain accessible to everyone, everywhere, fostering global equity and inclusive innovation.”
Falcon 3 Family
The Falcon 3 series includes four model sizes: Falcon 3-1B, -3B, -7B, and -10B. Compared to its predecessors, special focus has been placed on seamless integration. These models are fully compatible with widely used APIs and libraries, reducing integration efforts and ensuring ease of use. This makes it possible for users to choose the solution that best meets their needs.
With exceptional performance in reasoning, language understanding, instruction following, code generation, and mathematical tasks, Falcon 3 is set to redefine standards in AI. The Falcon 3 small models are available in both Base and Instruct variations, each ranking among the most powerful in the world for their size. The Base model supports general-purpose generative tasks, while the Instruct model is fine-tuned for conversational applications.
Quantised Versions
Falcon 3 is available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. It also offers quantised versions, enabling optimized integration into specialized architectures. These versions are resource-efficient and lightweight, designed for rapid deployment and inference.
Dr. Najwa Aaraj, CEO of TII, commented, “Falcon 3 is a culmination of our dedication to pioneering research and attracting top-tier talent. It is a testament to our pursuit of scientific excellence, offering unparalleled efficiency and setting new benchmarks in AI technology.”
Dr. Hakim Hacid, Chief Researcher at TII’s AI and Digital Science Research Centre (AIDRC), added, “As AI evolves, we are proud to push the boundaries with Falcon 3, contributing to the open-source community. This release will empower businesses and individuals to harness AI capabilities in ways previously unimaginable.”
Immediate Availability and Future Developments
Falcon 3 is available for download now on HuggingFace and at FalconLLM.TII.ae, along with detailed benchmark data. Additionally, TII is launching Falcon Playground, an interactive environment for end-users, developers, coders, and researchers to explore Falcon 3 before its official release, offering a chance to experiment and provide feedback.
Falcon 3 is licensed under the TII Falcon License, a permissive Apache 2.0-based software license that includes an acceptable use policy to ensure responsible AI usage.
Looking ahead, early January 2025 will see the introduction of new members of the Falcon 3 family, focusing on multimodal functionalities that incorporate text, images, video, and voice.
