# LLaMA 2 Released

LLaMA 2, released by Meta AI on July 18, 2023, is a family of open-weight large language models with 7B, 13B, and 70B parameters, notable for permitting commercial use.

LLaMA 2 (stylized as LLaMa 2) is a family of [large language models](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model) released by [Meta AI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/meta-ai) on July 18, 2023, in partnership with [Microsoft](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/microsoft). It succeeded the original LLaMA model and was notable for making model weights available for commercial use, a departure from the earlier version's restricted academic-only access. The release included both foundation models and instruction fine-tuned chat variants, with sizes of 7, 13, and 70 billion parameters.

The model architecture remained largely unchanged from LLaMA 1, but training data was increased by 40%. LLaMA 2 was trained on publicly available data, and the chat versions were fine-tuned using techniques such as [RLHF](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/rlaif) (reinforcement learning from human feedback). The models were distributed under a custom license that permitted commercial use but imposed an acceptable use policy, leading to disputes over whether they qualified as open-source software.

## Background

The release of [ChatGPT](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/chatgpt) in late 2022 and its rapid popularity intensified interest in [generative AI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/generative-ai) and [large language models](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model). Meta's chief AI scientist, [Yann LeCun](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/yann-lecun), had previously stated that such models were best suited for aiding writing, positioning Meta's approach within the broader [AI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/artificial-intelligence) landscape.

LLaMA 1, announced on February 24, 2023, was a foundation model family ranging from 1B to 65B parameters. Its weights were initially available only to researchers on a case-by-case basis under a non-commercial license. In March 2023, unauthorized copies of LLaMA 1 were leaked via BitTorrent and HuggingFace, prompting Meta to file takedown requests. The leak was compared to the open distribution of [Stable Diffusion](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/stable-diffusion), which had spurred rapid community innovation.

## Release and Features

LLaMA 2 was announced on July 18, 2023, with three parameter sizes: 7B, 13B, and 70B. The foundation models were trained on 2 trillion tokens of publicly available data, a 40% increase over LLaMA 1. The chat models were fine-tuned on over 1 million human annotations and used [RLHF](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/rlaif) to align responses with user intent.

The license for LLaMA 2 allowed commercial use, but it included restrictions such as prohibiting use to improve other large language models. This led the Open Source Initiative to argue that LLaMA 2 was not truly open source, despite Meta's use of the term.

## Commercial and Ecosystem Impact

LLaMA 2's commercial availability made it a popular choice for startups and enterprises seeking an alternative to proprietary models from [OpenAI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/openai) and [Anthropic](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/anthropic). It was integrated into [Amazon Web Services](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/amazon-web-services) (AWS), [Azure](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/azure), and [Google Cloud](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/google-cloud) platforms, enabling deployment via managed services. The 70B model was particularly noted for its performance on benchmarks, often rivaling larger proprietary models.

In August 2023, Meta released Code Llama, a fine-tuned version of LLaMA 2 specialized for code generation, with sizes 7B, 13B, 34B, and later 70B. This expanded LLaMA 2's applicability to software development tasks.

## Successors and Legacy

LLaMA 2 was succeeded by LLaMA 3 on April 18, 2024, which introduced 8B and 70B models trained on 15 trillion tokens. LLaMA 3 demonstrated that performance continued to improve even beyond the [Chinchilla](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/chinchilla)-optimal training data amount, a finding that influenced scaling practices. LLaMA 3.1 followed on July 23, 2024, with a 405B parameter model, and LLaMA 4 was released in April 2025.

In April 2026, Meta Superintelligence Labs introduced Muse Spark as a replacement for LLaMA, marking a shift in Meta's AI model strategy. LLaMA 2 remains a significant milestone in the history of open-weight [large language models](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/large-language-model), having set a precedent for commercial accessibility and shaping the ecosystem of [generative AI](https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/generative-ai).

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Source: https://www.wikiprompt.org/wiki/meta-llama-2-2023
License: CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)
Last updated: 2026-09-13T04:00:20.320617+00:00