CERN and Mistral partner to build AI foundation models for physics

European ‌physics research ​centre CERN and Mistral AI have signed a statement of intent ‌to establish a long-term strategic partnership to develop foundation models for scientific discovery, the two organisations said on Thursday.

The ‌partners aim to build a "Large Physics Model", which CERN ‌said in a statement would be the first foundation model for collider physics, trained on billions of simulated particle collisions. It is ⁠meant ​to replace ⁠some specialised algorithms now used to reconstruct and identify particles.

CERN holds ⁠about one exabyte, or one million terabytes, of experimental data ​from the Large Hadron Collider, and expects the volume ⁠of collisions to increase tenfold after its ongoing upgrade, expected around ⁠2030. "High-energy ​physics provides a unique environment in which artificial intelligence can be developed and tested with exceptional ⁠rigour," CERN Chief Information Officer Enrica Porcari said.

No timeline or budget ⁠was ⁠disclosed. Both sides said the models could later serve other sciences.