Cohere launches a family of open multilingual models

Enterprise AI company Cohere launched a new family of multilingual models on the sidelines of the ongoing India AI Summit. The models, dubbed Tiny Aya, are open-weight — meaning their underlying code is publicly available for anyone to use and modify — support over 70 languages, and can run on everyday devices like laptops without requiring an internet connection. The model, launched by the company’s research arm Cohere Labs, supports South Asian languages such as Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Urdu, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, and Marathi. The base model contains 3.35 billion parameters — a measure of its size and complexity. Cohere has also launched TinyAya-Global, a version fine-tuned to better follow user commands, for apps that require broad language support. Regional variants round out the family: TinyAya-Earth for African languages; TinyAya-Fire for South Asian languages; and TinyAya-Water for Asia Pacific, West Asia, and Europe. Image Credits: Cohere “This approach allows each model to develop stronger linguistic grounding and cultural nuance, creating systems that feel more natural and reliable for the communities they are meant to serve. At the same time, all Tiny Aya models retain broad multilingual coverage, making them flexible starting points for further adaptation and research,” the company said in a statement. Cohere noted that these models, which were trained on a single cluster of 64 H100 GPUs (a type of high-powered chip by Nvidia) using relatively modest computing sources, are ideal for researchers and developers building apps for audiences that speak native languages. The models are capable of running directly on devices, so developers can use them to power offline translation. The company noted that it built its underlying software to suit on-device usage, requiring less computing power than most comparable models. Image Credits: Cohere In linguistically diverse countries like India, this kind of offline-friendly capability can open up a diverse set of applications and use cases without the need for constant internet access. The models are available on HuggingFace, the popular platform for sharing and testing AI models, and the Cohere Platform. Developers can download them on HuggingFace, Kaggle, and Ollama for local deployment. The company is also releasing training and evaluation datasets on HuggingFace and plans to release a technical report detailing its training methodology. Techcrunch event TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston, more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediatelySave up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. TechCrunch Founder Summit: Tickets Live On June 23 in Boston, more than 1,100 founders come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediatelySave up to $300 on your pass or save up to 30% with group tickets for teams of four or more. Boston, MA | June 23, 2026 REGISTER NOW The startup’s CEO, Aidan Gomez, said last year that the company plans to go public “soon.” According to CNBC, the company ended 2025 on a high note, posting $240 million in annual recurring revenue, with 50% growth quarter-over-quarter throughout the year. Topics AI, ai models, Cohere, Offline first Ivan Mehta Ivan covers global consumer tech developments at TechCrunch. He is based out of India and has previously worked at publications including Huffington Post and The Next Web. You can contact or verify outreach from Ivan by emailing im@ivanmehta.com or via encrypted message at ivan.42 on Signal.

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