Liquid AI Launches LEAP Dev Kit to Simplify On-Device Mobile AI App Development

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – Liquid AI, a company founded by former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers, has announced the release of its Liquid Edge AI Platform (LEAP), a new software development kit (SDK) designed to enable the creation of on-device, mobile AI applications. The announcement, highlighted by VentureBeat, marks a significant step towards making small language models (SLMs) more accessible for integration directly into mobile applications, addressing growing demands for privacy, efficiency, and offline functionality.

The LEAP SDK aims to streamline the process for developers, allowing them to embed SLMs into iOS and Android applications with minimal code. This platform is built to overcome challenges associated with cloud-only AI services, such as latency, cost, and data privacy concerns. Alongside LEAP, Liquid AI also introduced Apollo, a companion iOS application that facilitates local testing and interaction with these on-device models.

LEAP is designed for a broad range of developers, including those without extensive machine learning expertise, making on-device AI integration as straightforward as calling a traditional cloud API. The platform supports a library of compact models, including Liquid AI’s own LFM2 models, which are optimized for efficient performance on mobile hardware with as little as 4GB of RAM. These models range in size from 350M to 1.2B parameters, offering competitive speed and accuracy.

Ramin Hasani, co-founder and CEO of Liquid AI, emphasized the strategic shift in the industry, stating, "Our research shows developers are moving beyond cloud-only AI and looking for trusted partners to help them build on-device." He added that LEAP is their answer, providing a flexible, end-to-end deployment platform for accessible edge AI. The company's vision extends to fostering a unified ecosystem for edge AI, allowing developers to discover, adapt, test, and deploy SLMs tailored for specific on-device use cases.

The LEAP SDK is currently available under a free developer license, with premium enterprise features planned for future release. Liquid AI is actively engaging with enterprise customers for commercial licensing. This initiative by Liquid AI underscores a growing industry trend towards decentralized AI processing, bringing powerful AI capabilities directly to consumer devices.