Visitors try out a smart translation tool at an experience center of iFlytek in Hefei, Anhui province, on Aug 6. LIN QIUJIN/XINHUA
HEFEI — Inside the smart exhibition hall of Safaricom, Kenya's largest telecommunications operator, a digital human supported by a Chinese tech company delivers live demonstrations of core business services and interprets financial report data for visitors through intelligent interactive functions.
Across emerging markets with huge digital-economy potential, Chinese artificial intelligence companies are partnering with host nations to build home-grown large language models adapted to local languages and industrial demands.
Leading global large language models have long prioritized widely spoken languages, leaving minor-language communities underserved. Multiple experts warn that countries with less-used languages run the real risk of being sidelined by AI, and this technological gap has become a key focus for Chinese AI firms.
Leveraging its expertise in speech intelligence and natural-language processing, Chinese tech company iFlytek has ramped up research and development for multilingual technologies. Its speech large language model Spark supports speech recognition and simultaneous interpretation for more than 130 languages.
