Meta Passes the PyTorch AI Research Framework to Linux

Community-driven artificial intelligence (AI) research framework PyTorch will be moving from Meta to a new, independent PyTorch Foundation that will be part of the Linux Foundation.

The move is intended to further democratize access to the latest tools, libraries and other components to speed up progress in AI and machine learning (ML), according to a Meta blog post Monday (Sept. 12).

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Open collaboration has been a central tenet of the PyTorch framework for AI research, which was launched in 2016 in partnership with the AI community. Thousands of contributors built more than 150,000 projects, making PyTorch among the leading platforms for research and production across the AI community, according to the post.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Monday that the nonprofit Linux Foundation is a technology consortium whose core mission is the collaborative development of open-source software.

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“PyTorch has become one of the leading AI platforms with more than 150,000 projects on GitHub built on the framework,” Zuckerberg said. “The new PyTorch Foundation board will include many of the AI leaders who’ve helped get the community where it is today, including Meta and our partners at AMD, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Nvidia.”

One of the main priorities of the PyTorch Foundation will be maintaining a separation of business and technical governance, according to the blog post. The foundation’s principles will encompass remaining open, having neutral branding, staying fair and creating a strong technical identity.

“We’ve worked consistently to nurture the community-driven growth that has fueled PyTorch’s success, committing hundreds of engineers to the framework and supporting product development and community outreach,” Meta said in its blog post.

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