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Research Switzerland

Building the next generation of open AI infrastructure

ETH Zurich, EPFL and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) released Apertus 1.5, a fully open large language model trained on the Alps supercomputer. The model adds multimodal understanding, improved reasoning, and tool use support, and is available under an Apache 2.0 license for research and commercial use. The release includes a mini suite of 16 compact models and a CSCS inference service for Swiss users.

Published
17 Aug 2026
2 min read 1 source
Intelligence brief
Switzerland / Research
CH

ETH Zurich, EPFL and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) released Apertus 1.5, a fully open large language model trained on the Alps supercomputer. The model adds multimodal understanding, improved reasoning, and tool use support, and is available under an Apache 2.0 license for research and commercial use. The release includes a mini suite of 16 compact models and a CSCS inference service for Swiss users.

Why it matters

Apertus 1.5 strengthens Switzerland’s sovereign AI infrastructure by providing a transparent, open alternative to proprietary models and enabling local research, industry, and public sector applications.

Primary source record
ETH AI Center

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