On July 1st, AMALIA, an open source artificial intelligence (AI) model was officially launched by a consortium of Portuguese universities and research institutions. Developed in Portugal, and trained on European Portuguese data, the model represents Portugal’s push for data and algorithmic sovereignty.
AMALIA was released as a set of applications for industry, research, and public administrations, ensuring that it remains domain-specific. The consortium, coordinated by the Agency for State Technological Reform (ARTE), and supported with €5.5 million in EU recovery funds, published the model under an open source licence. “Releasing it as an open model [both the weights and the training data] ensures full transparency and reduces dependency on closed, foreign-controlled models, which is particularly important for applications in the public sector” says Manuel Dias, Chief Technology Officer of ARTE.
Portugal’s AI Agenda
ARTE was established in August 2025 from a previous agency to deliver Portugal’s digital strategy, supporting the country’s transition both in public administration and other sectors. As part of the strategy, the National Artificial Intelligence Agenda presents Portugal’s push for AI to drive economic competitiveness through responsible innovation and public sector support.
AMALIA has been designed with the agenda in mind, with core objectives of strengthening sovereignty over public information systems and citizen data, promoting Portuguese language and culture, and reinforcing domestic research and innovation (R&I). AMALIA’s launch has shown promise – Dias highlights that already “companies [are] integrating the model with their products.” He underlines that open source increases the speed of innovation, “which is very important for Europe and Portugal to stay competitive in the fast-moving field of AI.”
Establishing algorithmic autonomy extends beyond economic competitiveness as control of sensitive information is increasingly a focus across the EU. Furthermore, the model’s design is purpose-built for public administration, which will allow for simpler, smarter, and a more inclusive experience for citizens accessing online services. Being trained on European Portuguese, the model is designed to communicate with users in the cultural signifiers and linguistic tendencies they understand, avoiding the blurring of language from larger, proprietary models.
Built on collaboration, for collaboration
ARTE and its Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence released AMALIA alongside a portal providing tools for knowledge sharing, capacity building, and a Responsible AI Framework. Through AMALIA’s openness, Dias states that “It … allows a broader community to build applications on top of the model and improve it, benefitting… the citizens as users, the developers who can build applications on top, and the researchers who will continuously improve the model and benefit from the data.”
Portugal’s new AI model not only supports open collaboration, but also gained from it in its creation. Running on the Deucalion and MareNostrum 5 supercomputers in Lisbon and Barcelona respectively, and developed from EuroLLM-9B – a model designed to enhance European digital sovereignty – AMALIA was developed with the help of both national and European investments in R&I Infrastructure.
AMALIA’s future
With its release, Dias tells OSOR that ARTE is focusing on both technical improvements and implementing the model into public administration. For the former, the number of parameters will be scaled up “for more complex tasks… and agentification.” In the latter, AMALIA will support public services for citizens as well as internal processes “like public procurement, legal analysis and the tender evaluation.”
Enhancing and further distributing AMALIA in accordance with the principles of openness and knowledge sharing lays the foundation for the model to be embedded across Portuguese society. As Dias states, “This supports Portugal's digital strategy on two levels: it's a direct expression of technological sovereignty, and it's a concrete step toward the goal of placing Portugal among the EU's ten most digitally advanced countries by 2030.”
Photo by Andreas Brücker
