OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc. are teaming up to develop artificial intelligence models that can understand and communicate in African languages, addressing the lack of AI models for the continent’s diverse dialects.
The initiative, which also includes French telecom giant Orange SA, will kick off in the first half of next year, with a focus on two West African languages, Wolof and Pulaar, spoken by around 22 million people in the region, Bloomberg reported.
These are languages that “are not understood today by any AI”, and therefore not representative, according to Steve Jarrett, Orange’s chief artificial intelligence officer.
Presently, most of the data used by leading AI companies to train their algorithms comes from the United States. As a result, their models often miss crucial contexts, such as cultural nuances and regional languages, when applied to areas like the Middle East, and Africa.
Orange plans to expand the project over time, aiming to collaborate with more AI tech companies to create large language models that will help it serve customers across its 18 markets in the Middle East and Africa.
Africa, home to about a third of the world’s languages, faces challenges in including these dialects in AI training models, primarily due to limited funding and infrastructure.
To support the project, Orange will leverage public cloud capacity in both Europe and Africa, alongside its own data centres. However, the company has not yet disclosed where it will source the data required to train these models.
The initiative aims to use AI in local languages to improve customer interactions, and Orange also plans to offer the technology for free to support public health, education, and local businesses. According to Jarrett, the project will later expand to include other sub-Saharan languages like Lingala, Swahili, and Bambara.
“We see the initiative as a blueprint for how AI can be used to benefit those currently excluded,” Jarrett said. “Orange’s vision is to make AI and other related advances accessible to all, including illiterate populations, who are currently unable to benefit from the potential of artificial intelligence.”
As part of the partnership, OpenAI will provide Orange with early access to its AI models, enabling the telecom company to develop use cases, such as AI-driven voice interactions with customers, and offer extra data processing and hosting capacity in European data centres.
