Innovation from Greece

Three of Oumi’s key founding members were born, raised, and completed their basic education in Greece. Panos, Manos, and Konstantínos spoke to “THEMA” about their venture, artificial intelligence, and whether Greece has the potential to produce cutting-edge technology.

Mános Koukoumídēs: “Our strength lies in the thousands of scientists from top universities in the U.S. and the U.K. who are committed to our effort.”

Manos Koukoumides, Panos Achlioptas, and Konstantínos Aísopos pursued their PhDs in the United States and spent a significant part of their post-academic careers working at companies like Google, Meta, Snap, and Microsoft. The idea that artificial intelligence is not just the future but also the present brought them together, and thus, Oumi was born.

Pános Achlióptas: “We want everything to be available to everyone. We want every piece of information, every dataset, and every process to be accessible to anyone who seeks it.”

Manos and Konstantínos were in the U.S. at the same time, while Panos pursued his PhD there at a different period. The three scientists emphasize that Greece continues to have the capability and institutions—despite challenging conditions—to produce top-tier scientific talent. However, when asked whether Greece could one day lead with a purely Greek-developed model in cutting-edge technologies, the answer is “almost impossible.”

Panos Achlioptas notes that a country like Greece lacks both the resources and the commitment to support AI technologies, which are not only financially but also energetically costly. The fact that Greece still manages to “produce” scientists of such caliber is mainly due to the dedication and passion of a few significant professors, as Greek university infrastructure is shrinking rather than expanding.

Among the 32 individuals—mainly academics—who support the Oumi initiative is Georgia Gkioxari, a professor of Artificial Intelligence at Caltech.

How Oumi Differs

What sets Oumi apart from ChatGPT and DeepSeek?

Konstantínos Aísopos: “We want to officially open an office in Greece. We aim to attract Greeks who have the skills to work in AI without having to leave the country.”

As CEO Manos Koukoumides points out, Oumi is a fully open AI model, unlike ChatGPT and the Chinese DeepSeek, which, while open-source, do not provide access to their entire system and models.

Panos Achlioptas illustrates this with an example:
“Imagine a user wants to bake a cake. ChatGPT, as a closed model, takes the request and delivers the final product to the user. DeepSeek provides both the final product and the recipe. We go a step further: we provide the final product, the recipe, and even a factory where the user can produce as many cakes as they want, making modifications to the recipe as they see fit and improving the product in any way they believe will bring them more success and progress.”

Achlióptas also emphasizes that Oumi’s true innovation lies in its commitment to fully open AI models:
“We want everything to be available to everyone. Every piece of knowledge, every piece of progress, and every technology should not be locked inside a black box that only a select few can access.”

Konstantinos Aisopos adds that unlike other AI models currently available, Oumi is built on knowledge. Thousands of top scientists and academics actively support Oumi, which is crucial because it’s not just backed by top engineers but by a broad range of experts from multiple disciplines. “We are an unconditionally open platform.”

Features

Oumi integrates various aspects of AI development into a unified environment, streamlining workflows that are often fragmented in traditional systems. Researchers can train, refine, and deploy models seamlessly without having to combine different tools.

Oumi supports models ranging from 10 million to 405 billion parameters, allowing extensive experimentation at different scales.

Moreover, Oumi is designed to work with both text-based and multimodal systems, enhancing its flexibility for various applications. By leveraging distributed computing across participating academic institutions, it aims to significantly reduce the financial burden associated with developing advanced AI models, contrasting with the massive investments seen in projects like OpenAI’s Stargate.

A Collaborative Ecosystem

Oumi AI is backed by partnerships with 13 renowned universities, including Stanford, MIT, and Princeton. This academic support not only boosts the platform’s credibility but also fosters a collaborative environment where researchers can share ideas and resources.

Manos Koukoumides highlights:
“We may be a small team—much smaller than OpenAI, Google, or Meta, which have around 1,000 people working on their AI initiatives. The fact that we are fewer—around 10 core team members—gives us great flexibility. But people underestimate our true strength: thousands of scientists from top U.S. and U.K. universities are committed to our effort. For every issue, every request, and every scientific question posed to Oumi’s models, there are thousands of experts with deep knowledge ready to tackle it.”

Funding and Future Growth Plans

Oumi, headquartered in Seattle, launched just days after the shockwaves caused by the Chinese DeepSeek AI in the U.S. AI sector. Despite this, Oumi quickly secured $10 million in funding from investors. According to Manos Koukoumides:
“Today, we are receiving hundreds of investment proposals. We have decided to implement our initial plan step by step, and we will proceed with our investor engagement in the same manner.”

When asked how they plan to ensure the company’s sustainability and growth, Oumi’s founders stress that their model does not rely on user profitability but on custom AI models developed for businesses. Oumi can generate tailored AI solutions for a wide range of enterprises, delivering significant economic returns.

The team also has immediate plans to expand to Greece. Konstantinos Aisopos states:
“We want to officially open an office in Greece soon. We are very interested in attracting Greek talent to AI without them having to leave the country. We can run this project remotely, and we have complete confidence in Greek innovators. After all, we come from the same background.”

You can find more information about Oumi at www.oumi.ai.
The open-source code for Oumi is available at GitHub.
The company’s name stands for Open Universal Machine Intelligence.