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  2. No. 10 · 9 Oct 2026
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NewsFree2 min readEdition 3 · October 2026 · Run the business smoother

Apertus 2.0, the next Swiss AI model, is due in early 2027 and is built for multi-step tasks

A glowing glass cube resting on a block of Alpine graniteA glowing glass cube resting on a block of Alpine granite

If you keep client files, contracts or staff matters out of US AI tools, the Swiss open model Apertus is your alternative. Its next version, due in the first quarter of 2027, focuses on maths, programming and tasks with several steps.

What happened

On 1 October, at the AI+X Summit in Zurich, Imanol Schlag of the ETH AI Center presented the plan for Apertus 2.0 (Blick):

  • When: first release in the first quarter of 2027, an improved version by the end of 2027.
  • What’s better: programming, maths and agent skills, so the AI carries out a task with several steps on its own.
  • Cost: planned to cost about the same to run as today’s version.
  • Training: on the Alps supercomputer at CSCS in Lugano.

Why it matters for your business

Agents that work through a job step by step are what ChatGPT, Claude and Copilot sell now. Apertus 2.0 aims to bring that to a Swiss model. Its architecture, weights, training data and recipes are public, and it learns only from public data that respects website opt-outs (EPFL). A Treuhand, a practice or a law firm gets a Swiss option for multi-step jobs on confidential files, at today’s running costs.

The Swiss angle

  • Use today’s version now: Apertus 1.5 is one of the three models in Proton Lumo, the assistant from Geneva-based Proton, and every Lumo user can pick it (Proton Help). Our 18 September article shows the set-up.
  • Privacy: Apertus chats in Lumo get Lumo’s zero-access encryption. Sharing anonymised feedback with the researchers is opt-in (ETH Zurich).
  • Other providers: Swisscom and Infomaniak (in its Euria assistant) also run Apertus.
  • Languages: trained on more than 1,000 languages, including German, French and Italian.

What to do

Set up a test you can repeat when Apertus 2.0 arrives:

  1. Pick one confidential job you keep away from AI, for example checking a supplier contract against your standard terms.
  2. Anonymise the text and run the job on Apertus 1.5 in Lumo.
  3. Save the prompt and note what was missing.

Use 1.5 for the parts it handles well. Run the same prompt on Apertus 2.0 in early 2027 to see whether the whole job can move to a Swiss model.

Sources

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