SAN FRANCISCO, USA — Meta launched a new open-weight artificial intelligence (AI) model on October 15, claiming it rivals and, in some cases, outperforms comparable models developed by leading Chinese companies.
“Muse Spark Open is the most capable US open-weight model to date,” Meta’s chief of AI, Alexandr Wang, wrote on X.
Unlike closed AI models such as Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, open-weight models allow developers to download their trained parameters, or weights, and customise them for different applications.
Chinese developers have emerged as major players in the global open-weight AI market over the past two years. Alibaba’s Qwen, Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 and Z.ai’s GLM models have been among the leading contenders, but Meta says its latest offering can compete at a similar level.
Built for coding and AI agent-based applications, Muse Spark Open is designed to handle complex software engineering, long-running tasks and multi-step reasoning, Meta said in a blog post. The company added that the model incorporates safeguards to address potential risks.
Meta also said Muse Spark Open is optimised to run on Apple’s advanced M5 Ultra chips, highlighting an unusual collaboration between the two technology giants.
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg wrote on X that the model “runs great on new Mac Studios thanks to work with Apple and its new CEO John Ternus.”
Ternus, who succeeded Tim Cook as Apple’s chief executive in September, welcomed the development, saying it was impressive to run a model of Muse Spark Open’s capability and scale so efficiently on a desktop computer. He added that the Mac Studio continues to push the boundaries of on-device AI.
Despite these capabilities, Muse Spark Open still requires substantial computing resources.
Meta said users can combine two Mac Studio computers powered by M5 Ultra chips to build a desktop “supercomputer” capable of running the model.
The launch comes just days after Meta announced its latest closed AI models. On October 12, the company unveiled two frontier models, Wonder and Wonder Full, which it said could compete with the most advanced versions of ChatGPT and Claude.
Meta initially concentrated its AI strategy on open models, particularly its Llama family. However, as competition intensified, Zuckerberg pushed the company to strengthen its position against OpenAI and Anthropic.
The company launched its Spark model in April, marking a shift from its earlier Llama-based approach, which had struggled to keep pace with some competitors.
With Muse Spark Open, Meta is seeking to strengthen its position in the open-weight AI market, where Chinese developers have gained significant global traction.
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