Trellis Data launches near-foundation AI model

Australian AI company Trellis Data has launched one of the most advanced AI models developed in the nation to date, a near-frontier 220 billion-parameter model named Agentaus 1. The model is around 50% larger than Trellis Data’s previous model and has achieved a world ranking of 43 for foundational AI models.

The model has been designed to provide greater accuracy, deeper multi-step reasoning and more coherent outputs, while remaining secure enough for sovereign workloads and efficient enough to operate at scale on smaller compute clusters.

The company says Agentaus 1 will provide Australian business and government customers with a locally developed AI that can reduce the need to access multiple AI models for different tasks as well as reliance on models developed overseas by the major AI companies.

Trellis Data has been building AI capabilities in Australia, including those for high-security environments, for a decade. The latest release reflects the company’s ambition to establish Australia as a producer of advanced and secure AI technologies, according to founder Michael Gately.

“Agentaus 1 puts Australia on the global stage as an LLM AI model producer. It’s the next generation of Trellis Data’s sovereign AI capability, giving Australian organisations a more secure, effective and cost-efficient model while keeping their data and investment here in Australia,” he said. “As the Australian Government seeks to introduce new mandatory AI safety and security protections to build trust and mitigate risks associated with Frontier AI use in this country, Agentaus 1 and all of our products already meet these standards.

“Trellis Data has always prioritised the development of safe and secure AI. We’re already working on what comes next. Our ambition is to keep building world-class AI here at home and demonstrate that Australia can be a producer of advanced AI, not simply a consumer of technology built elsewhere. It is critical to our productivity, economic prosperity and national resilience.”

Trellis Data plans to target Australian businesses with the solution first before expanding into international markets. Access is available via free, subscription, enterprise and API tiers.

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