Pruna AI and the European AI Program: A Shared Vision for Accessible AI

On October 1st, we officially joined Meta’s European AI Program. While this is certainly a milestone for us, what’s more important is the shared vision that connects us to the program and its partners. This is about being part of a larger movement to make AI accessible, sustainable, and open-source, ensuring that AI’s transformative power serves as a positive force for society.

Our Commitment to Accessible and Sustainable AI

At Pruna AI, we believe that the future of AI must be accessible and sustainable. This is the only way to ensure that the transformational changes AI is bringing to society are directed toward the common good. Our values align closely with those of the European AI Program and its corporate partners—Meta, Hugging Face, Scaleway, and HEC—who also prioritize open-source AI.

That’s why we’ve been dedicated to pushing compressed models on Hugging Face’s platform. With 6.5k models to date, we’ve become the organization with the most open-source models on their platform, all part of our mission to make AI easier to implement and scale efficiently across a variety of use cases.

Why European AI Matters

We’re proudly European, and that’s not just for marketing. From the very beginning, Pruna AI has been built with one foot in Germany and the other in France. Our co-founders live and work between Munich and Paris, and with teams growing in both countries, we’re tapping into the best talent Germany and France have to offer. This dual-country approach allows us to access the dynamic ecosystems and innovation hubs of Europe.

But European AI must be more than just a vision—it needs to be realized in practice. Few organizations embody this vision like Pruna AI, as we understand that European AI is a critical necessity. Europe has missed the wave of value creation from the last digital revolution, with much of the value captured by companies from the US and China. According to the recent Mario Draghi report, our economies face a significant productivity challenge, and we can’t afford to miss out on the AI revolution.

The Pitch: A Journey of Opportunity

When we first heard about the program, it was through friends at Toongether and Qevlar who were part of the previous batch. They shared their experiences, and it felt like the right time for us to get involved. After all, we’ve been working hard to build a solid, enterprise-ready solution, so when the call for applications came in early summer, it just clicked.

Our pitch process was rigorous—competing with over 200 other startups. After being selected as one of the few finalists, we had to present our case in front of a jury in a fast-paced session. We brought in key benchmarks and public customer testimonials that highlighted the value of our product, and that helped us stand out. But the real work starts now.

The Collaboration Begins: Building AI Efficiency Together

Now that we’re officially part of the program, we’re excited about the collaborative possibilities with our partners. There’s a lot of work to be done together, especially in making large language models (LLMs) more accessible and creating an ecosystem around AI efficiency. The journey isn’t just about optimizing AI tools—it’s about ensuring that more organizations can leverage these advancements in real-world applications.

A Growing Ecosystem of European AI

This program connects us to an incredible network of partners and innovators. We’ve already seen how the workshops and sessions are pushing the boundaries of what European AI can achieve, from shaping policy to accelerating AI adoption across industries. In fact, being part of recent workshops at the Élysée to help shape France’s AI strategy is just one example of how we’re contributing to this larger effort. Stay tuned—there’s much more to come.

That’s why our participation in the European AI Program is about more than joining a high-profile initiative. It’s about contributing to a collective effort to ensure Europe remains competitive in the global AI landscape. Open-source, accessible, and sustainable AI are key to this vision, and we’re proud to play a role in making it happen.

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About Pruna AI

Pruna AI is the AI Optimization Engine. More than 300.000 monthly downloads, ML Teams rely on the Pruna Optimization Engine to simplify scalable inference. By smashing any model using combinations of compression methods, it delivers optimal size and speed to enable cheaper, faster, smaller, greener deployment for any hardware and use-case. To learn more, follow Pruna AI on LinkedIn, X, and HuggingFace.