Search and RAG builders get strong multilingual embeddings free under MIT, from tiny 270M models to a 27B heavyweight.

Kenning's take

What it does

Harrier is a family of open-source text embedding models from Microsoft's Bing team, used to find and rank relevant text for search and AI answers. The largest has 27 billion parameters, with smaller 0.6B and 270M versions for low-end devices, and they support 100+ languages with a 32k context window. The weights are free to download on Hugging Face under the MIT licence.

  • Top of multilingual MTEB v2 at launch
  • 100+ languages
  • 32k token context window
  • 27B, 0.6B and 270M sizes
  • MIT licence on Hugging Face

Who it suits. Developers building search, retrieval and RAG systems.

Key facts

Category
AI models
Made by
Microsoft
Based in
United States
Released
7 April 2026
How to get it
free open weights on Hugging Face
Works on
open-weights
In the UK
Yes
Free plan
yes, open weights

FAQ

Is Harrier free?

Yes. The weights are on Hugging Face under the MIT licence.

When was Harrier released?

Microsoft announced it on 7 April 2026.

Facts from the maker's own pages and the sources listed. Checked 2026-10-11.