Taking powerful artificial intelligence software and making it open source, so anyone in the world can use it, seems like something out of a sci-fi movie, but both Google and Microsoft have done exactly that in recent months. Now Facebook is going a step further and opening up its powerful AI computer hardware designs to the world.

It's a big move, because while software platforms can certain make AI research easier, more replicable, and more shareable, the whole process is nearly impossible without powerful computers.

Today, Facebook announced that it is open sourcing the designs of its servers — which it claims run twice as fast as before. The new design, called Big Sur, calls for eight high-powered graphics processing units, or GPUs, amongst the other traditional parts of the computer like the central processing unit, or CPU, hard drive, and motherboard.