EleutherAI began as a Discord server in July 2020

EleutherAI’s about page says the organization grew “from a Discord server for talking about GPT-3 to a leading non-profit research institute,” dating its founding to July 2020 by Connor Leahy, Sid Black, and Leo Gao. It reports that its open models “have been downloaded over 70 million times.”

Sources

Last verified June 6, 2026