Databricks, has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire generative AI platform MosaicML through a transaction valued at $1.3 billion, inclusive of retention packages.
Together, Databricks and MosaicML are expected to make generative AI accessible for every organisation, enabling them to build, own and secure generative AI models with their own data.
MosaicML is known for its MPT large language models (LLMs). With over 3.3 million downloads of MPT-7B and the recent release of MPT-30B, MosaicML has showcased how organisations can quickly build and train their own models using their data in a cost-effective way.
Customers such as AI2 (Allen Institute for AI), Generally Intelligent, Hippocratic AI, Replit and Scatter Labs leverage MosaicML for a wide variety of generative AI use cases.
“Every organisation should be able to benefit from the AI revolution with more control over how their data is used,” said Ali Ghodsi, co-founder and CEO of Databricks. “Databricks and MosaicML have an incredible opportunity to democratize AI and make the Lakehouse the best place to build generative AI and LLMs.”
The Databricks Lakehouse Platform, combined with MosaicML’s technology, will offer customers a simple, fast way to retain control, security, and ownership over their valuable data without high costs.
According to MosaicML, automatic optimisation of model training provides two times to seven times faster training compared to standard approaches.
Combined with near linear scaling of resources, multi-billion-parameter models can be trained in hours, not days. With Databricks and MosaicML, training and using LLMs will cost thousands of dollars, not millions.
Databricks’ unified Data and AI platform combined with MosaicML’s generative AI training capabilities will provide a platform touted as robust enough to serve the world’s largest organisations and flexible enough to address a broad range of AI use cases.
The entire MosaicML team, including MosaicML’s industry-leading research team, is expected to join Databricks after the transaction closes. MosaicML’s machine learning and neural networks specialists conduct pioneering AI research to improve model training efficiency.
The team is behind some of today’s most popular and advanced open-source foundation models, such as MPT-30B, as well as the training algorithms powering MosaicML’s products.
MosaicML’s platform will be supported, scaled, and integrated over time to offer customers a seamless unified platform where they can build, own and secure their generative AI models.
Databricks and MosaicML will give customers greater choice in building their own models, training models with their own unique data, and creating differentiating IP for their businesses.
Naveen Rao, co-founder and CEO of MosaicML, said they started MosaicML to solve the hard engineering and research problems necessary to make large scale training more accessible to everyone.
