TEXT → AUDIO • CURATED • UPDATED OCT 21, 2026

Granite Speech 5.0 2B

IBM's Apache 2.0 speech model for transcription and translation in six languages
Price
Free
API
No
Weights
Yes

Granite Speech 5.0 2B is IBM's speech model released October 21, 2026, under Apache 2.0. It transcribes English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese, and translates between English and those languages, plus English into Italian and Mandarin. IBM says a prompt can name the input language, ask for punctuation, and bias a list of up to 2,000 keywords. On the Open ASR Leaderboard's public English short-form sets, IBM reports an average word error rate of 5.06 percent and calls that second among top open-weight speech models as of October 21, 2026. It runs in Transformers, vLLM, llama.cpp and mlx-audio.

Open speech models that handle more than English, and that you can run yourself, are still rare. This one is Apache 2.0, two billion parameters, and IBM publishes the word-error figure on the public sets rather than only a private mix.

Pricing Free
Platforms local
API No
Open Source Yes
Modalities Text → Audio
Best For Best Open Speech Model
Date Added 2026-10-21
  • ✓Apache 2.0 weights at 2 billion parameters
  • ✓Transcription in six languages and translation to and from English
  • ✓Keyword lists of up to 2,000 terms
  • ✓Average English word error rate of 5.06 percent on public short-form sets, per IBM
  • ✓Runs in Transformers, vLLM, llama.cpp and mlx-audio
  • ⚠A speech model, not a general chatbot
  • ⚠The 5.06 percent word error rate is IBM's average on public English short-form sets
  • ⚠Translation into Italian and Mandarin is English-to-those-languages only
  • ⚠No IBM-hosted API is part of this release. You run the weights

Download ibm-granite/granite-speech-5.0-2b. IBM's usage examples are on the model card. Name the spoken language in the prompt when you know it, and pass a keyword list for names and product terms. For speed on device, IBM points to the smaller granite-speech-5.0-470m-turboctc model instead.

Free Completely free
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Compare Granite Speech 5.0 2B with 5+ similar text → audio AI tools.

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Q

Is Granite Speech 5.0 2B free?

A

Yes, Granite Speech 5.0 2B is completely free to use.

Q

Does Granite Speech 5.0 2B have an API?

A

No, Granite Speech 5.0 2B does not appear to offer a public API.

Q

What is Granite Speech 5.0 2B best for?

A

Granite Speech 5.0 2B is best for Best Open Speech Model. Granite Speech 5. Open speech models that handle more than English, and that you can run yourself, are still rare. This one is Apache 2.0, two billion parameters, and IBM publishes the word-error figure on the public sets rather than only a private mix.

Q

What platforms does Granite Speech 5.0 2B support?

A

Granite Speech 5.0 2B supports local.

Q

Is Granite Speech 5.0 2B open source?

A

Yes, Granite Speech 5.0 2B is open source. You can access the source code, contribute, and deploy it on your own infrastructure.

Q

How do I get started with Granite Speech 5.0 2B?

A

Download ibm-granite/granite-speech-5.0-2b. IBM's usage examples are on the model card. Name the spoken language in the prompt when you know it, and pass a keyword list for names and product terms. For speed on device, IBM points to the smaller granite-speech-5.0-470m-turboctc model instead.

Q

How do I generate audio with Granite Speech 5.0 2B?

A

Granite Speech 5.0 2B creates audio from text descriptions. Enter prompts describing the type of audio you want (voice, music, sound effects) along with style, tone, and duration details.

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