Red Hat has announced a developer preview version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux AI (RHEL AI), becoming one of the first Linux distros to embrace AI.

AI is a controversial topic within the Linux community, with some using the open source OS specifically to avoid using things like AI. Despite the controversy, Red Hat appears to be throwing its support behind the burgeoning tech, rolling out a version of RHEL specifically designed “to seamlessly develop, test and run best-of-breed, open source Granite generative AI models to power enterprise applications.”

The main objective of RHEL AI and the InstructLab project is to empower domain experts to contribute directly to Large Language Models with knowledge and skills. This allows domain experts to more efficiently build AI-infused applications (such as chatbots).

Red Hat hopes to challenge the status quo, in which many of the Large Language Models (LLMs) are based on heavily patented, closed source licenses. In addition, training LLMs can be expensive and often does not prioritize privacy, confidentiality, or data sovereignty.

Red Hat (together with IBM and the open source community) proposes to change that. We propose to introduce the familiar open source contributor workflow and associated concepts like permissive licensing (e.g. Apache2) to models and the tools for open collaboration that enable a community of users to create and add contributions to LLMs. This will also empower an ecosystem of partners to deliver offerings and value to enable extensions and the incorporation of protected information by enterprises.

Those interested in Red Hat’s approach to AI can learn more here and join the open source community and start contributing here.