OpenAI and Meta Platforms will begin training artificial intelligence programs on African languages, addressing a shortage of models for the continent’s thousands of dialects.

The project, which also involves French telecommunications operator Orange, will start during the first half of next year, the companies said in a statement on Tuesday. Initially, the companies will focus on two West African languages, Wolof and Pulaar, which are spoken by 22 million people in the region.

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The French phone carrier ultimately wants to expand the project to more AI technology companies to build large language models that can help it communicate with customers across its 18 markets in the Middle East and Africa. Africa is home to about a third of the world’s languages. That scope, together with limited funding and patchy infrastructure, means few of those dialects have been included in AI training models.

Orange said it will use public cloud capacity in Europe and Africa to help train the models, as well as its own data centres. The company did not immediately respond to a question about where it will get the data needed to train the models.

Orange will use the local language model to engage with its customers, and plans to make it available for free public health and education services, as well as local companies and businesspeople, said Steve Jarrett, Orange’s chief AI officer. The project will target training on other sub-Saharan languages including Lingala, Swahili and Bambara next year.

Early access

“We see the initiative as a blueprint for how AI can be used to benefit those currently excluded,” Jarrett said in an e-mail. “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.”

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OpenAI will also give Orange early access to its AI models so the carrier can develop use cases, such as AI-based voice interactions with its customers, as well as provide additional data-processing and hosting capacity in European data centres. — Loni Prinsloo and Jillian Deutsch, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP