Portugal has entered the race for artificial intelligence sovereignty with the launch of its first open-source large language model. Named Amalia, the project is designed to help public institutions, businesses and researchers build AI applications while reducing Europe’s reliance on foreign technology providers.
Portugal has officially launched its first open-source artificial intelligence model, joining a growing movement across Europe to develop home-grown AI technologies and reduce dependence on leading American AI companies.
The model, called Amalia, was unveiled in Lisbon on Wednesday and represents one of Portugal’s most ambitious technology initiatives to date. Rather than competing directly with consumer AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, Amalia has been developed as a foundational large language model that governments, universities, businesses and researchers can use to build their own AI-powered applications.
The initiative places Portugal alongside countries such as France and Germany, where governments have increasingly backed domestic AI projects in an effort to strengthen Europe’s technological independence. Policymakers across the continent have expressed growing concern about relying heavily on AI models developed outside Europe, particularly as artificial intelligence becomes more deeply integrated into government services, healthcare, finance and critical infrastructure.
Amalia was developed by a consortium of Portuguese universities and research institutions with support from the Portuguese government. The project received €5.5 million in funding from the European Union’s recovery programme, reflecting broader European efforts to encourage innovation in strategic technologies.
Unlike proprietary AI systems that restrict access to their underlying technology, Amalia has been released under an open-source licence, together with its training dataset and source code. This allows developers and organisations to inspect, modify and deploy the model according to their specific requirements while promoting greater transparency in AI development.
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro described artificial intelligence as a strategic priority for Europe’s future.
«”Europe’s strategic autonomy is today, perhaps more than ever, tied to AI. This model will enable us to face the coming decades with greater sovereignty and less dependence,” Montenegro said during the launch ceremony.»
He added that the government intends to continue investing heavily in the initiative, saying Amalia is expected to improve productivity across both the public and private sectors, including banking, insurance, telecommunications and industry, while maintaining high standards of security. Rather than serving as a chatbot for the general public, Amalia is intended to become the foundation for specialised AI solutions tailored to Portugal’s needs.
Among its first planned applications are a virtual guide for Portuguese museums, decision-support tools for the Portuguese Navy, an AI-powered teaching assistant that helps educators prepare lessons, and a digital assistant designed to improve the delivery of public services.
The project also benefits from Portugal’s growing investment in high-performance computing. Training modern AI models requires enormous computing resources, and Amalia will leverage the country’s Deucalion supercomputer as well as access to MareNostrum 5, one of Europe’s most powerful supercomputers. Those systems provide the computing capacity needed to train and operate large language models efficiently.
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Portugal’s announcement reflects a wider shift taking place across Europe. Governments increasingly view artificial intelligence not only as a commercial opportunity but also as a matter of economic resilience, national security and digital sovereignty. European leaders have argued that relying too heavily on foreign AI providers could expose governments and businesses to strategic risks while limiting Europe’s ability to shape the future of AI development.
France has backed companies such as Mistral AI, while Germany has supported firms including Aleph Alpha. Portugal’s Amalia now joins that growing ecosystem of European-developed AI models designed to offer alternatives to platforms created by companies such as OpenAI, Google and Anthropic.
Open-source AI has become an increasingly important part of the industry’s evolution. Supporters argue that openly available models encourage innovation, improve transparency and allow organisations to customise AI systems without depending entirely on commercial providers. Critics, however, note that open-source projects must still compete with well-funded proprietary models that continue to lead many global AI benchmarks.
Even so, many governments believe maintaining domestic AI capabilities is becoming strategically essential. Portugal’s investment signals that smaller nations are also determined to play a meaningful role in shaping the future of artificial intelligence rather than simply adopting technologies developed elsewhere.
While Amalia is still in its early stages, the launch marks an important milestone for Portugal’s technology sector and reinforces Europe’s broader ambition to build an AI ecosystem that reflects its own languages, values and regulatory priorities.
As competition in artificial intelligence continues to intensify, countries are no longer investing only in AI applications. They are investing in the infrastructure, talent and foundational models they believe will define the next generation of digital innovation. Portugal’s launch of Amalia demonstrates that Europe’s pursuit of AI sovereignty is steadily gathering momentum.
