Chile and 30+ regional institutions unveil Latam-GPT, an open source foundation model built on Latin American data to reduce AI bias, strengthen digital sovereignty, and power local innovation.
Chile has launched Latam-GPT, the first open-source artificial intelligence language model designed specifically for Latin America, positioning it as shared regional infrastructure rather than a consumer chatbot. The system aims to reflect local languages, cultures, and realities while strengthening the region’s sovereignty and presence in the global AI race.
The two-year initiative is led by the National Center of Artificial Intelligence of Chile (CENIA), with support from more than 30 institutions across eight countries.
President Gabriel Boric called the move strategic, saying, “Artificial intelligence is the greatest technological revolution of recent times, and from Latin America and the Caribbean, it is strategic and urgent that we play a role.”
Unlike English-dominant models, Latam-GPT addresses linguistic and cultural bias using Latin American data previously absent online. Rodrigo Durán, Executive Director at CENIA, said, “Latam-GPT is trained with a proportion of Latin American data that previously did not exist online and was not included in existing models. This allows for more accurate, correct and efficient performance when it comes to Latin America and the Caribbean.”
The model was trained on more than eight terabytes of regional and synthetic data. It currently supports Spanish and Portuguese, with Indigenous languages planned. The first version was built on AWS, with future training shifting to a $4.5 million supercomputer at the University of Tarapacá.
Developed with just $550,000 in funding from CENIA and CAF, the project offers a cost-efficient, collaborative alternative to Big Tech systems, giving Latin America greater control over AI development, regulation, and innovation.
