The acceleration in Artificial Intelligence will have a fundamental impact on society. A considerable part of this effort stems from training larger models on larger datasets. The resources for this endeavour are found mainly in the hands of big technology giants. The stranglehold on this transformative technology poses problems, from a research advancement, environmental, ethical and societal perspective. The BigScience project takes inspiration from scientific creation schemes such as CERN and the LHC, in which open scientific collaborations facilitate the creation of large-scale artefacts that are useful for the entire research community.