Just when you thought AI news and developments have reached peak saturation, it seems there’s always something new that captures our collective imagination.
Every week brings a new large language model – the backbone of many AI implementations.
This time, AI is getting a Hindi-language breakthrough. It’s part of NANDA, a project unveiled earlier this month at the UAE-India Business Forum in Mumbai.
Named after one of India’s highest peaks, NANDA is a technological – and cultural – feat in itself that’s supposed to open the doors to AI for more than half a billion Hindi-language speakers.
NANDA is a partnership between G42, the UAE-based tech holding group, the Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence and the American AI company Cerebras.
G42 describes the project as a cutting-edge Hindi Large Language Model – trained on one of the most advanced supercomputers in the world.
That’s a departure from the usual news about AI LLMs, which for a long time, have been centred around the English language, leading some to worry about an uphill battle for other languages and cultures trying to get a foot into artificial intelligence.
So, this is a monumental step forward in artificial intelligence – and broader tech accessibility. But in a world where mentions of AI conjure concerns of tech ethics and information wars, where do up-and-coming LLMs fit in?
In this episode of Business Extra, host Cody Combs hears from Preslav Nakov, a professor at MBZUAI specialising in artificial intelligence and computational linguistics, about what this means for linguistic and cultural diversity – or whether we're just scratching the surface of what’s possible.
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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'My Son'
Director: Christian Carion
Starring: James McAvoy, Claire Foy, Tom Cullen, Gary Lewis
Rating: 2/5
Brief scores:
Toss: Nepal, chose to field
UAE 153-6: Shaiman (59), Usman (30); Regmi 2-23
Nepal 132-7: Jora 53 not out; Zahoor 2-17
Result: UAE won by 21 runs
Series: UAE lead 1-0
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5