Switzerland solidifies its role as global AI hub with launch of multimodal Apertus 1.5 model

Switzerland is emerging as a leading European hub for artificial intelligence, leveraging world‑class universities such as ETH Zurich and EPFL, the ALPS supercomputer operated by the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS), and coordinated public‑private initiatives. The Swiss AI Initiative and the International Computation and AI Network (ICAIN) link research institutions, startups and international partners to develop large‑scale AI models and promote transparent, sovereign AI systems.

In March 2024 the EPFL, ETH Zurich and CSCS released Apertus 1.5, an open‑source multimodal language model trained on the ALPS supercomputer in Lugano. The model expands its context window to 262 144 tokens and can process text, images and audio simultaneously, offering full transparency of code and training data. Public administrations, health researchers and media organisations are already deploying Apertus 1.5 locally for confidential document analysis and archival research, underscoring Switzerland’s growing influence in AI innovation and governance.