Meta Unveils New Llama 3.3 Model As It Turns To Nuclear Energy To Power AI

Around two and a half months ago, Meta released the new version of its Llama family of AI models—Llama 3.2—which came with other reveals, including Orion, Quest 3S, and a new and improved Ray-Ban Meta Glasses that came with AI feature updates.

Now, the technology conglomerate that’s advocating an open AI world (pun intended) has announced the next iteration of the Llama 3, with the release of Llama 3.3, a new 70B parameter text model.

Shared through a video posted on Instagram by the company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and through a post on X by Ahmad Al-Dahle, the VP of GenAI at Meta, the two leading executives of the company introduced Llama 3.3

As per their posts, the new 70B model delivers the performance of the company’s prior 405B model but is easier and more cost-efficient to run.

“By leveraging the latest advancements in post-training techniques including online preference optimization, this model improves core performance at a significantly lower cost, making it even more accessible to the entire open source community,” said Al-Dahle's post.

On the other hand, Zuckerberg also spoke about the future of Meta’s AI models, confirming that Llama 3.3 will be the last big AI update for Meta this year, as well as the last upgrade to the Llama 3 family.

2025 will bring Llama 4, something that the CEO has already spoken about.

“Our goal at Meta is to build general intelligence and open source it, so that way everyone benefits,” said Zuckerberg. “Meta AI now has nearly 600 million monthly active [users] and as promised is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year.”

Zuckerberg further mentioned that Llama has become the most adopted model with over 650 million downloads, and is on track to become an industry standard, owing to its open-source nature.


Ahead of this, Meta’s CEO revealed that the company recently announced that it was building a data center in Louisiana, which will be used to train future versions of Llama, as Meta acts on its commitment to build “the most advanced AI in the world.”

Of course, Meta’s push to build the best AI in the world in a way that benefits everyone doesn’t skip over the call of the day that’s seeing all artificial intelligence (AI) companies turn to clean energy sources to power their AI dreams.

In the last few months, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have revealed their interest in using nuclear-powered small modular reactors (SMRs) to generate clean, sustainable energy to fuel their AI advancement efforts.

Keeping to this trend, Meta is also making a move to nuclear energy.

Recently, Meta released a request for proposals (RFP) to identify nuclear energy developers to help meet their AI and sustainability objectives. The aim is to add 1-4 GW of new nuclear generation capacity in the US to be delivered starting in the early 2030s.

An excerpt from the blog post announcing the move reads “As new innovations bring impactful technological advancements across sectors and support economic growth, we believe that nuclear energy can help provide firm, baseload power to support the growth needs of the electric grids that power both our data centers (the physical infrastructure on which Meta’s platforms operate) as well as the communities around them.”

The RFP comes with a qualification intake form that must be completed and submitted by interested organizations by Friday, January 3, 2025, with initial RFP proposals due by Friday, February 7, 2025.

However, the move to turn to nuclear energy isn’t one that’s shared by Big Tech, as governments around the world are beginning to take it more seriously.

Recently, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the UK’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) along with British nuclear fusion company Tokamak Energy announced a plan to jointly sponsor a $52 million upgrade to Tokamak’s ST40 experimental fusion facility to advance fusion science and technology needed to deliver a future pilot plant.

According to Kerry McCarthy, the Minister for Climate in DESNZ, “Fusion has the potential to be a clean and sustainable energy source, transforming how we power our country, and countries around the world.”

Do you think Meta’s move to leverage nuclear energy will help its aspirations of becoming the most used AI assistant in the world?

Let us know in the comments below!