Swiss AI Research Platform

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about access and use of the Swiss AI Platform

Can I use this in my project?

Yes, as long as it's an academic project, we should be able to grant you access.

Can I use this for commercial or startup use?

No, this is for non-commercial use only. Please reach out at apertus-ai.org/contact/, including some details and we will forward your request to the right internal team or industry partners

Can I launch any model?

Yes, see model launch. This usually requires a CSCS GPU grant. Compute grants come in two tiers: small (<32k GPU hrs) and large (>500k GPU hrs). See the compute grants process.

Is my institution enabled?

Members of supported Swiss institutions are auto-enabled, getting an active budget on first sign-in. If your institution is not recognised when you sign in, please contact us.

I'm at a non-Swiss university, can I get access?

Yes, but service is prioritised in this order:

(1) ETH and EPFL Apertus-related projects,
(2) Swiss AI-related institutions,
(3) other global academic institutions.

Can I get access as a guest or external collaborator?

Yes. Guest accounts are added manually by our team, so please contact us with a short description of your project and who you are working with at a supported institution.

I'm running a hackathon or sprint, can we get access?

Possibly. If it's academic and focused on Apertus, please reach out at apertus-ai.org/contact/.

I can't access the Chat because I'm not on the network. What can I do?

If you have API access, try running Open WebUI locally: see the Open WebUI guide. Otherwise, we can whitelist your institution or VPN IP range; please contact us.

I would like to collaborate on an academic project, is this possible?

Please reach out at apertus-ai.org/contact/.

Do you store my prompts and responses?

For the API: no. We do not store prompt or response content. We keep only metadata logs (e.g. userid, input/output token counts, model, timestamp) for capacity planning and abuse prevention.

For the internal facing Chat app: yes, your conversation history is retained so you can return to past chats. This is important for the Apertus team development and testing various model types. Your chats are not extracted and used for training. To request deletion of your chat history, please contact us.

Do you train models on my data?

No. We do not use your prompts or responses to train or fine-tune models. All data used to train Apertus data has strict data standards.

How long do you retain data?

API metadata logs (token counts, model, timestamp) are kept indefinitely for operations and abuse prevention. Individual chat history is retained until you delete it via OpenWebUI settings or you delete your account, to do this please contact us. For specific data retention questions, please contact us.

For the Chat application, where is my data processed and stored?

The platform runs on Swiss infrastructure (CSCS) which is based in Lugano. This includes the entire application, including the web application, API, database and storage.

Can I send personal, confidential, or sensitive data?

Do not send personal, confidential, or otherwise sensitive data (e.g. personally identifiable information). The platform is a research service and is not intended for processing such data. If your project has specific data-protection requirements (FADP/GDPR), please contact us first.

What models are available?

You can list the currently available models on the webpage or via the /v1/models endpoint, or pick from the model selector in the Chat app.

Are there rate limits or usage budgets?

Yes. Each user/institution has a usage budget, and requests may be rate-limited to keep the service fair and available. If you need a higher limit for a project, please contact us.

How do I get or reset my API key?

You can create and reset your key on the API key page. Currently there is only 1 API key available per user.

Can I use OpenAI-compatible tools and SDKs?

Yes. The API is OpenAI-compatible, so it works with the OpenAI SDKs, LangChain, Open WebUI and similar tools — just point the base URL at our endpoint (.../v1) and use your API key.

Can I share a chat publicly?

No. Chats can only be shared with specific signed-in users or a group via the Share button — there is no public link, since all access requires an SSO login. Pasting a chat URL won’t work for others; use the Share dialog instead.

How should I cite or refer to the service in a paper, proposal, or other document?

Please refer to the service as Swiss AI Serving and cite the OpenTela project that powers it using the following BibTeX entry: 
@inproceedings{318577,
  author = {Xiaozhe Yao and Youhe Jiang and Ilia Badanin and Qinghao Hu and Robert Matthew Smith and Binhang Yuan and Imanol Schlag and Eiko Yoneki and Ana Klimovic},
  title = {{OpenTela}: Unifying Decentralized Computing Resources for Heterogeneous {LLM} Serving (Operational Systems)},
  booktitle = {20th USENIX Symposium on Operating Systems Design and Implementation (OSDI 26)},
  year = {2026},
  isbn = {978-1-939133-55-7},
  address = {Seattle, WA},
  pages = {1821--1838},
  url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/osdi26/presentation/yao},
  publisher = {USENIX Association},
  month = jul
}