To challenge Big Tech companies in the AI space , a non-profit organisation Current AI is planning to change the way artificial intelligence is built and used. It is working on an open AI ecosystem that anyone can access and build on. According to a report by TechCrunch, its goal is to create a ‘World Wide Web of AI’ that is free, open and benefits people across the world.
One of its biggest projects is already taking place in India. According to the report, at the India AI Summit earlier this year, Current AI partnered with Bhashini, the Indian government’s AI language initiative, to launch Suno Sutra.
The pocket-sized device works without an internet connection and supports AI in 22 Indian languages. It is also open-source, allowing developers to improve and expand it.
The device will people in areas with limited internet access, including farmers and rural communities.
“In India, there are hundreds of different languages and dialects, and right now AI is not representing them,” Current AI CEO Ayah Bdeir said in an interview with TechCrunch.
Founded in 2025 by Martin Tisne, Current AI operates as a public-private partnership backed by governments, philanthropies and technology companies.
According to TechCrunch, the organisation has secured around $400 million in funding, including support from the French government, Ford Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, DeepMind and Salesforce.
Bdeir believes AI should not be controlled only by private companies.
“If AI is truly a transformative technology, if it’s going to change every aspect of everyone’s life, there has to be a public alternative. Like the World Wide Web, available to anyone, for free,” she was quoted as saying.
She also raised concerns over how existing AI models collect language data.
“Big tech builds multilingual models to expand their market, regardless of consent or context. For Indigenous languages, missionary Bible translations become training data before communities have set any rules,” she told TechCrunch.
As per the report, Current AI is also funding projects in Kenya, Lebanon and Brazil to build AI tools for local languages, education, healthcare and cultural preservation while keeping community data under local control.
Earlier this month, the nonprofit introduced Alpha Chat, an open-source chatbot built with partners including Hugging Face, Mozilla and MIT Media Lab.
It has also partnered with Japan-based Sakana AI to develop an open-source AI stack that supports local languages and communities often overlooked by mainstream AI systems.
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