Latin America takes on cultural bias with new AI language model

Details: Vaughan O'Grady; Category: Service Management; 12 February 2026; 1445 views

Latam-GPT, a Latin American initiative to develop a language model built entirely in the region, was launched this week. It originates in Chile, where it was developed by the Chilean National Centre for Artificial Intelligence (Cenia).

Described as “a language model made in Latin America, for Latin America”, Latam-GPT is an open-source artificial intelligence model for the region, designed to combat bias inherent in an industry dominated by the US.

It uses millions of data points collected in Latin America to showcase the continent’s cultural diversity. Indeed a glance at the Latam-GPT website highlights contributions to the project and data for the model’s training from universities, foundations, libraries, government entities and civil society organisations in countries across the region.

For now, it is trained mainly in Spanish and Portuguese content, although its developers plan to incorporate material in indigenous Latin American languages. But this is not just about language. The aim is to combat what Chile’s Science Minister Aldo Valle, calls prejudices and generalisations about people and countries from the region that other AI models may incorporate or depict.

The AFP news service notes that, unlike closed generative models like ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, Latam-GPT is an open model that can be used by programmers to customise parts of the software to suit their needs.

Although it was trained on more than eight terabytes of data, equivalent to millions of books, this is still, arguably, a modest effort, developed for about $550,000, sourced primarily from the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) and Cenia’s own resources. It was developed using the Amazon Web Services cloud, but training will eventually switch to a supercomputer at a Chilean university.

However, there is no doubt more to come from this and other localised models. Latam-GPT itself will be available free of charge to companies and public institutions to develop applications more specific to Latin America. Meanwhile other regions of the world are also developing public AI models that respect their cultural norms and safety standards and, of course, LLMs are starting to expand beyond the world's seven main language groups.