(Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O) on Thursday said it would release an artificial intelligence (AI) model designed to assist in writing computer code, furthering its push into the new technology.

Code Llama, which will be available for free, can write code based on human text prompts and can also be used for code completion and debugging, the social media giant said in a blogpost.

Since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT late last year, enterprises and businesses have flocked to the nascent generative AI market for newer capabilities and refining business processes.

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta has released a flurry of AI models, mostly free, this year, including an open-source language model, called Llama, that poses a serious challenge to proprietary models sold by Microsoft-backed (MSFT.O) OpenAI and Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google.

The new AI model is built on top of Meta's latest Llama 2 language model and will be available in different configurations, the company said, as it gears up to compete with Microsoft's code-writing tool GitHub Copilot.

Code Llama supports the popular coding languages like Python, Java and C++ and is not recommended for general text tasks, Meta said.