{"slug": "apertus", "name": "Apertus", "category": "ai-models", "category_name": "AI models", "description": "", "recommenders": 10, "commenters": 19, "warners": 1, "score": 10.302, "rising": -1.95, "first": "2025-11-21", "latest": "2026-10-29", "why": "Switzerland, through EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, has released a complete pipeline with all training data", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 10, "neutral": 8, "compare": 0, "warn": 1}, "spark": [1, 0, 1, 0, 2, 1, 0, 2, 2, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "Switzerland, through EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, has released a complete pipeline with all training data", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "swiss-ai.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.swiss-ai.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Apertus"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 804680753, "item_id": 50292547, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292547", "by": "InsideOutSanta", "date": "2026-10-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Also Apertus: https://apertus-ai.org/", "excerpt": "Also Apertus: https://apertus-ai.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're releasing the weights of Mistral Large 4"}, {"id": 784434608, "item_id": 49027163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49027163", "by": "cookiengineer", "date": "2026-07-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "both open source (not only open weight) models", "excerpt": "Europe is actually catching up right now. Not at the frontier like kimi and qwen 3.6 (yet) but it's just a matter of time until the European A3B models catch up, too. Apertus and Soofi, both open source (not only open weight) models: [1] https://apertus.ai/en/apps/apertus-model/ [2] https://www.soofi.info/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Startup founders urge Trump not to shut off Chinese open weight AI"}, {"id": 781423042, "item_id": 48838940, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48838940", "by": "anonym29", "date": "2026-07-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Apterus even respects opt-out notices in their collection of the dataset they distribute.", "excerpt": ">I'm not aware of any models with full training data available, let alone available with full licensing. Check out the OLMo family from the Allen Institute for AI: https://allenai.org/blog/olmo3 Also worth looking at EleutherAI, LLM360, SmolLM, Apertus. Apterus even respects opt-out notices in their collection of the dataset they distribute. KL3M from Kelvin Legal is even trained on a 100% copyright-free legal/govern", "context": "", "use_case": "open-data models", "switched_from": "", "story": "Chatto is now Open Source"}, {"id": 777973136, "item_id": 48623321, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48623321", "by": "MASNeo", "date": "2026-06-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Find it useful enough.", "excerpt": "I use Apertus including as the driver for an agent, not a coding agent. Find it useful enough. What was your Challenge?", "context": "", "use_case": "Agent driver model", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}, {"id": 777124240, "item_id": 48570265, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48570265", "by": "sschueller", "date": "2026-06-17", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Although not frontier it is fully open.", "excerpt": "Apertus was built by universities in Switzerland. Although not frontier it is fully open. [1] https://apertvs.ai/pages/about/", "context": "", "use_case": "Fully open AI model", "switched_from": "", "story": "GLM-5.2 is the new leading open weights model on Artificial Analysis"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 777972384, "item_id": 48623274, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48623274", "by": "coder543", "date": "2026-06-21", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Is a recipe useful if no one likes it?", "excerpt": "Is a recipe useful if no one likes it? There are equally open, much more useful models out there: https://artificialanalysis.ai/?models=nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b%2Cnvidia-nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b%2Colmo-3-1-32b-instruct%2Colmo-3-1-32b-think%2Ck2-think-v2%2Capertus-8b-instruct%2Capertus-70b-instruct#intelligence", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}]}], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["open-data models", "open foundation model", "agent driver model", "fully open ai model", "open-weight llm", "open multilingual llm"], "compared": [{"slug": "olmo", "name": "Olmo", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "qwen", "name": "Qwen", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48622778", "title": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50289418", "title": "We're releasing the weights of Mistral Large 4", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49294997", "title": "GLM-5.3: Frontier Coding with Emergent Cyber Capabilities", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49050483", "title": "True open-source LLM Apertus 1.5 released", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49031749", "title": "Apertus 1.5 out \u2013 Latest version of Switzerland's open model with 70B version", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49023016", "title": "Startup founders urge Trump not to shut off Chinese open weight AI", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2, "warn": 1, "neutral": 3}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 2, "neutral": 3}, "2026-08": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 19, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 804713456, "item_id": 50294591, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294591", "by": "polymatter", "date": "2026-10-29", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "https://www.swiss-ai.org/apertus Is the model in question", "excerpt": "https://www.swiss-ai.org/apertus Is the model in question", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're releasing the weights of Mistral Large 4"}, {"id": 804680753, "item_id": 50292547, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50292547", "by": "InsideOutSanta", "date": "2026-10-29", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Also Apertus: https://apertus-ai.org/", "excerpt": "Also Apertus: https://apertus-ai.org/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "We're releasing the weights of Mistral Large 4"}, {"id": 788771185, "item_id": 49298199, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49298199", "by": "jazzyjackson", "date": "2026-08-14", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Swiss open-source AI model, developed by EPFL, ETH Zurich and CSCS", "excerpt": "I don\u2019t have user statistics but my mail/domain registrar Infomaniak advertises Qwen 3.5 and Apertus, \u201ca Swiss open-source AI model, developed by EPFL, ETH Zurich and CSCS\u201d https://euria.infomaniak.com/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "GLM-5.3: Frontier Coding with Emergent Cyber Capabilities"}, {"id": 784808096, "item_id": 49050506, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49050506", "by": "skadge", "date": "2026-07-25", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Benchmark results in the model card: https://huggingface.co/swiss-ai/Apertus-v1.5-70B Long story short: ~equivalent to Olmo 3.1", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "True open-source LLM Apertus 1.5 released"}, {"id": 784510096, "item_id": 49031881, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49031881", "by": "myyke", "date": "2026-07-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Now also on HF", "excerpt": "Now also on HF: https://huggingface.co/collections/swiss-ai/apertus-v15", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus 1.5 out \u2013 Latest version of Switzerland's open model with 70B version"}, {"id": 784434608, "item_id": 49027163, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49027163", "by": "cookiengineer", "date": "2026-07-23", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "both open source (not only open weight) models", "excerpt": "Europe is actually catching up right now. Not at the frontier like kimi and qwen 3.6 (yet) but it's just a matter of time until the European A3B models catch up, too. Apertus and Soofi, both open source (not only open weight) models: [1] https://apertus.ai/en/apps/apertus-model/ [2] https://www.soofi.info/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Startup founders urge Trump not to shut off Chinese open weight AI"}, {"id": 784044016, "item_id": 49002751, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49002751", "by": "herbst", "date": "2026-07-21", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "No idea if it's any good but it's there", "excerpt": "Ex. https://apertus.ai A swiss one. No idea if it's any good but it's there", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Who's Afraid of Chinese Models?"}, {"id": 781423042, "item_id": 48838940, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48838940", "by": "anonym29", "date": "2026-07-08", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Apterus even respects opt-out notices in their collection of the dataset they distribute.", "excerpt": ">I'm not aware of any models with full training data available, let alone available with full licensing. Check out the OLMo family from the Allen Institute for AI: https://allenai.org/blog/olmo3 Also worth looking at EleutherAI, LLM360, SmolLM, Apertus. Apterus even respects opt-out notices in their collection of the dataset they distribute. KL3M from Kelvin Legal is even trained on a 100% copyright-free legal/govern", "context": "", "use_case": "open-data models", "switched_from": "", "story": "Chatto is now Open Source"}, {"id": 778031904, "item_id": 48626994, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48626994", "by": "T-A", "date": "2026-06-22", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the Apertus model was trained on the Alps supercomputer", "excerpt": "the Apertus model was trained on the Alps supercomputer, operational at CSCS since September 2024, a data center of over 10'000 top-of-the-line NVIDIA Grace-Hopper chips https://log.alets.ch/110/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}, {"id": 777977264, "item_id": 48623579, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48623579", "by": "reconnecting", "date": "2026-06-21", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "A chat interface where you can try Apertus", "excerpt": "A chat interface where you can try Apertus: https://chat.publicai.co", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}, {"id": 777976384, "item_id": 48623524, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48623524", "by": "mrshu", "date": "2026-06-21", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the Apretus project are the people", "excerpt": "By far the most impactful product of the Apretus project are the people. To quote a memorable line from Dominique Paul (https://www.thisiscrispin.com/): > What most people miss IMO is that this is not a team who is doing this for the fourth time like virtually any other LLM provider and who could learn from its own past experiences. I bet if the team would do another model training they could get way better results a", "context": "", "use_case": "Open foundation model", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}, {"id": 777973136, "item_id": 48623321, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48623321", "by": "MASNeo", "date": "2026-06-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Find it useful enough.", "excerpt": "I use Apertus including as the driver for an agent, not a coding agent. Find it useful enough. What was your Challenge?", "context": "", "use_case": "Agent driver model", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}, {"id": 777972384, "item_id": 48623274, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48623274", "by": "coder543", "date": "2026-06-21", "version": null, "stance": "warn", "quote": "Is a recipe useful if no one likes it?", "excerpt": "Is a recipe useful if no one likes it? There are equally open, much more useful models out there: https://artificialanalysis.ai/?models=nvidia-nemotron-3-ultra-550b-a55b%2Cnvidia-nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b%2Colmo-3-1-32b-instruct%2Colmo-3-1-32b-think%2Ck2-think-v2%2Capertus-8b-instruct%2Capertus-70b-instruct#intelligence", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Apertus \u2013 Open Foundation Model for Sovereign AI"}, {"id": 777124240, "item_id": 48570265, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48570265", "by": "sschueller", "date": "2026-06-17", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Although not frontier it is fully open.", "excerpt": "Apertus was built by universities in Switzerland. Although not frontier it is fully open. [1] https://apertvs.ai/pages/about/", "context": "", "use_case": "Fully open AI model", "switched_from": "", "story": "GLM-5.2 is the new leading open weights model on Artificial Analysis"}, {"id": 765276176, "item_id": 47829761, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47829761", "by": "cristoperb", "date": "2026-04-19", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Apertus is the open source 8b and 70b LLM from swiss-ai.", "excerpt": "Apertus is the open source 8b and 70b LLM from swiss-ai. They've published both the base and the instruct sft models. Very cool that projects like this exist. https://apertvs.ai/pages/documentation/", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Swiss AI Initiative"}, {"id": 760382208, "item_id": 47523888, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47523888", "by": "seism", "date": "2026-03-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Check out Apertus, the publicly funded model", "excerpt": "Check out Apertus, the publicly funded model from a research team that goes to great lengths to remove icky content.", "context": "", "use_case": "open-weight LLM", "switched_from": "", "story": "iPhone 17 Pro Demonstrated Running a 400B LLM"}, {"id": 757261952, "item_id": 47328872, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47328872", "by": "iamcreasy", "date": "2026-03-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "is openly accessible and fully documented", "excerpt": "> \"open training\" is something that won't ever happen for large scale models https://www.swiss-ai.org/apertus Source: EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) has released Apertus, Switzerland\u2019s first large-scale open, multilingual language model \u2014 a milestone in generative AI for transparency and diversity. Trained on 15 trillion tokens across more than 1,000 languages \u2013 40% of the data ", "context": "", "use_case": "open multilingual LLM", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open Weights Isn't Open Training"}, {"id": 748295040, "item_id": 46768440, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46768440", "by": "denysvitali", "date": "2026-01-26", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "if you want a truly open model you can always try Apertus", "excerpt": "What the properietary models don't offer is... their weights. No one is forcing you to trust their training data / fine tuning, and if you want a truly open model you can always try Apertus (https://www.swiss-ai.org/apertus).", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Qwen3-Max-Thinking"}, {"id": 736045473, "item_id": 46002842, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46002842", "by": "shoffmeister", "date": "2025-11-21", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Switzerland, through EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, has released a complete pipeline with all training data", "excerpt": "Switzerland, through EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, has released a complete pipeline with all training data - that is \"fully open\", to my understanding. See https://www.swiss-ai.org/apertus for details. https://ethz.ch/en/news-and-events/eth-news/news/2025/07/a-language-model-built-for-the-public-good.html was the press release.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Olmo 3: Charting a path through the model flow to lead open-source AI"}]}