Meta has launched a new open-weight artificial intelligence model, Muse Spark Open, which it says competes with, and in some cases outperforms, similar models developed by leading Chinese technology companies.
Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, announced the model on Thursday, describing it as “the most capable US open-weight model to date”.
Unlike closed AI models, such as Anthropic’s Claude and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, open-weight models allow developers to download their underlying parameters, or weights, and customise them for specific applications.
Chinese developers have become prominent players in the open-weight AI market in recent years, with Alibaba’s Qwen, Moonshot AI’s Kimi K3 and Z.ai’s GLM models regarded as leading contenders.
Meta said Muse Spark Open was designed for coding and agent-based tasks, with capabilities for complex software engineering, long-running assignments and multi-step reasoning.
In a blog post announcing the release, the company also said it had integrated safeguards into the model to reduce potential misuse.
The launch also highlights an unusual collaboration between Meta and Apple, with Muse Spark Open optimised to run on Apple’s advanced M5 Ultra chips.
Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said on X that the model performed well on the new Mac Studio computers following work with Apple and its chief executive, John Ternus.
Ternus, who succeeded Tim Cook as Apple CEO in September, welcomed the collaboration, saying it was remarkable that a model of Muse Spark Open’s capabilities and scale could run so efficiently on desktop hardware.
He added that Mac Studio continued to push the boundaries of on-device artificial intelligence.
Despite the integration, running the model locally still requires substantial computing resources.
Meta said users could connect two Mac Studio computers powered by M5 Ultra chips to create what it described as a desktop “supercomputer” capable of running the model.
The arrangement reflects the growing interest in running powerful AI systems locally, potentially giving developers greater control over their computing environments and applications.
Meta Steps Up AI Competition
The launch comes days after Meta unveiled two new advanced AI models, Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full, which the company said could compete with leading offerings from OpenAI and Anthropic.
Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full form part of Meta’s broader strategy to strengthen its position in the rapidly evolving AI industry.
The company initially focused heavily on open-weight models, particularly its Llama family, which gave developers access to downloadable model weights for further development and customisation.
However, Meta has increasingly sought to compete directly with leading AI companies through more advanced models and substantial investments in research, computing infrastructure and specialist talent.
The release of Muse Spark Open signals that Meta is continuing to pursue both approaches: developing advanced proprietary AI systems while making selected model weights available to developers.
By combining open-weight access with optimisation for Apple’s high-end desktop computers, Meta is seeking to expand the range of developers able to experiment with its models and build more sophisticated AI applications.
