TipMeta releases Muse Spark Open – a large AI model that is free to download
Meta has made its Muse Spark Open model freely downloadable. It needs very powerful hardware, but for businesses that want to keep data in-house it opens up new options. Spotify founder Daniel Ek is also betting on open models.
On 15 October 2026 Meta released the weights, meaning the model files themselves, for Muse Spark Open. Meta calls it the most capable open model from a US company to date. It understands both text and images, can read very long documents (up to one million tokens) and is built for coding and longer agent tasks.
The model is released under Meta's own licence, the Muse Model License. According to Meta it lets many developers use the model for free, but it has limited commercial terms. Read the licence before building anything for customers.
It is huge: 816 billion parameters, of which 42 billion are active at a time. To run it on your own desk, Meta says you need two Mac Studios with M5 Ultra. For most people it is easier to use it through cloud services such as OpenRouter, Groq or Together AI, where you pay per use.
Why does it matter? With open models, data can stay on your own servers, which can help businesses handling sensitive information. The same week, Spotify founder Daniel Ek said in Stockholm, at the launch of the Swedish supercomputer Sferical One, that he believes 80 to 90 percent of future AI usage will run on open models.
How to get started
- If you are a beginner: stick with ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude. Open models require technical knowledge.
- If you are curious: try the model through a cloud service such as OpenRouter before investing in your own hardware.
- Read the licence terms if you plan to use it commercially.
More on TipAI
Sources
- Meta AI Research: Introducing Muse Spark Open (15 okt 2026) (retrieved 2026-10-20)
- Breakit: Daniel Ek – Så använder vi 80–90 procent av AI i framtiden (16 okt 2026) (retrieved 2026-10-20)
- Omni/TT: Daniel Ek om AI – ”Europa måste våga mer” (15 okt 2026) (retrieved 2026-10-20)
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