BytePlus’ Post

A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research (A*STAR I²R) is proud to unveil the #MERaLiON Version 2.0 and 𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗮𝗟𝗶𝗢𝗡 Consortium at Asia Tech x Singapore 2025, with a special mention by Minister Josephine Teo, during her opening keynote.   Building on Version 1.0, which was made publicly available on HuggingFace last December, 𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗮𝗟𝗶𝗢𝗡 2.0 introduces enhanced capabilities and supports a diverse set of languages and features reflective of the rich, multicultural fabric of Southeast Asia.  As Minister Teo described, 𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗮𝗟𝗶𝗢𝗡 embraces our regional “campur campur” of language mixing in everyday life.   𝗞𝗲𝘆 𝗵𝗶𝗴𝗵𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟮.𝟬: • Code-switching and language-mixing capabilities • Emotion and paralinguistic understanding • Support for English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, Singlish, Thai, Bahasa Indonesian and Vietnamese   With the 𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗮𝗟𝗶𝗢𝗡 Consortium now live - we’re bringing together leading minds to co-create #AI that’s grounded in real-world needs.  By pooling resources, curated datasets and tapping into the collective intelligence of our partners, the Consortium enables scalable fine-tuning, domain-specific use cases and powerful network effects that accelerate meaningful value creation.   We’re honoured to welcome our founding members and share a fun photo moment with Minister Teo: DBS Bank, Grab, HTX (Home Team Science & Technology Agency), SPH Media, MOH Office for Healthcare Transformation (MOHT), BytePlus, ST Engineering, NCS Group, Microsoft, National Supercomputing Centre (NSCC) Singapore , Axiom IT Solutions Pte Ltd and CommonTown Pte Ltd.   The 𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗮𝗟𝗶𝗢𝗡 journey kicks off strong - and we’re only getting started! 🚀   The 𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗮𝗟𝗶𝗢𝗡 research is supported by the National Research Foundation Singapore and IMDA under the National Large Language Models Funding Initiative. Keng Hui Lim Sumei Sun Chen Hui Ong Lawrence W. Kian Boon Lim Sunil Sivadas, Ph.D. Nisa Zainal joel loo Boon Leong Tan , MTech(KE) Susie Weiyang Jin Pang Ngean Lam Bidyut Dumra Terence Hung, PhD Neha Joshi Cynthia Yeo Onno Kampman