Our Manifesto
Europe doesn't have a talent problem. It has a coordination problem. The best AI researchers in the world work in European universities and labs, but their efforts are fragmented, siloed and slowed down by bureaucracy. ORCAI exists to fix that. We're a grassroots collective that ships open AI, starting now.
The system is too slow for the moment
AI moves at breakneck speed. A new frontier model drops every few months. But in Europe, if you want to build something big, you're told to write a grant proposal. That takes 3-4 months. Then you wait 5 months for evaluation. Then 3 more months for the grant agreement. And there's an 85% chance you'll be rejected anyway.
By the time European funding arrives, the rest of the world has already moved on. This isn't a criticism of EU programmes. They fund real, important work. But they were not designed for a field where 12 months is a generation.
Meanwhile, Europe has already proven a different path can work. CERN coordinates thousands of contributors across borders to build world-class scientific infrastructure. Folding@home and BOINC mobilized volunteer compute at massive scale. Mission-driven, open collaborations can outship slow, proposal-driven structures.
Our principles
🔓 Open by default
Code, models, training recipes, evaluations: all public unless there's a compelling safety reason. Open-weight is not just nice; it's how you build trust and enable an ecosystem.
🛠 Work over credentials
We don't care where you studied or who your employer is. If you can contribute, you belong. A brilliant independent researcher matters as much as a tenured professor.
⚡ Start now, formalize later
Don't wait for permission. If the research is worth doing, begin. Structure follows shipped artifacts, not the other way around. Grants are fuel, not permission.
🧭 Minimal governance, maximum output
Enough process to be trustworthy. Not so much that it becomes the work. Small teams with clear owners and 30–60 day deadlines. Ship or sunset. No zombie projects.
🌍 European, but not exclusive
We're rooted in Europe because that's where the coordination gap is biggest. But anyone aligned with the mission is welcome. Open means open.
🔒 Security is not optional
Volunteer compute requires trust: signed workloads, sandboxed execution, verification, and clear policies on what runs where. We build safety in from day one.
Ship artifacts, not vibes
ORCAI is not "just another Discord server." It's an execution engine. Here's what we'll actually ship:
- A compute commons: volunteer GPUs for safe workloads (evals, data processing, distillation), partner clusters for heavy training. Think Folding@home, but for AI.
- Open-weight models: trained on European infrastructure, released with full recipes so anyone can reproduce and improve them.
- Multilingual knowledge packs: because European languages deserve first-class AI support, not an afterthought.
- Public evaluations: transparent benchmarks so everyone can see what works and what doesn't.
What we promise
- No gatekeeping. Participation is never gated on institutional affiliation.
- Transparent governance. Every decision is published. Every contribution credited.
- Low overhead. We keep admin below 10% of any funds we manage.
- Honest timelines. Projects that stall get archived with a post-mortem, not kept on life support.
- Safety-first compute. We don't cut corners on verification and isolation.
The window is open
Distributed training frameworks like DiLoCo, Hivemind and Petals have proven that you can train models across the internet without a centralized data center. OpenEuroLLM (a 20-institution consortium) launched in 2025 to build European open LLMs. The EU's AI Continent Action Plan is investing billions in compute infrastructure through EuroHPC AI Factories.
The infrastructure is coming. The institutions are waking up. But grassroots collectives move faster, and they keep everyone honest. ORCAI fills the gap between top-down policy and bottom-up talent. We're the people who actually build things.
Ready to build European AI?
The founding cohort is forming now. No credentials required, just the willingness to ship.
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