The UNESCO Regional Office in Santiago and the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence (CENIA) signed a cooperation agreement establishing a framework for collaboration to promote the use of AI in educational settings, strengthen capacities and uphold ethical standards throughout the entire lifecycle of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in Chile and Latin America.

The agreement, signed by the Director of the UNESCO Regional Office in Santiago, Esther Kuisch Laroche, and the Chief Operating Officer of CENIA, Mónica Soto Pérez, will enable the coordination of initiatives aimed at promoting the development of digital competencies, AI literacy and people-centred AI development models grounded in ethical principles from the outset.

The cooperation includes the development of specific projects in education and training for diverse audiences —from the general public to technical teams, teachers and decision-makers— as well as the creation of training resources adaptable to different institutional contexts. It will also foster multi-stakeholder dialogue and collaboration to strengthen national and regional ecosystems related to innovation and the responsible use of emerging technologies.

Among the initial milestones of this partnership is the availability of Latam-GPT, the region’s first open large language model, developed with its own identity from and for Latin America and the Caribbean, to support its use by Ministries of Education in coordination with the Regional Education Steering Committee, led by UNESCO. In this context, Latam-GPT will be a key tool of UNESCO’s new Regional Observatory on AI in Education.

The agreement aligns with UNESCO’s mandate as a specialised agency of the United Nations system, promoting normative frameworks and public policy guidance for ethical, inclusive and rights-based artificial intelligence. In this regard, CENIA’s experience in research, technology transfer and large-scale training will help expand the reach of these priorities across the region.