Saudi Arabia has launched a groundbreaking solution at Global AI Summit capable of accurately recognising Saudi dialects. 

 

The brand-new SauTech system, an AI-driven solution that converts speech into text using advanced speech-recognition techniques, was unveiled by the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) and its National Centre for Artificial Intelligence (NCAI) in collaboration with the Saudi Company for Artificial Intelligence (SCAI), a fully owned subsidiary of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the new system was announced during the second edition of the Global AI Summit at King Abdulaziz Conference Centre in Riyadh.

 

SauTech utilises cutting-edge speech recognition algorithms to process spoken language. The software supports audio files of various sizes to enable real-time speech-to-text conversion across different dialects thanks to its precise ability to recognise and identify local Saudi dialects. In addition to outperforming all current applications, the SauTech system is set to be upgraded to recognise more Arabic dialects. 

 

Saudi AI scientists

Dr Abdullah Alghamdi, President of SDAIA, commented: “The innovative SauTech system has been developed entirely by Saudi AI scientists and engineers within the kingdom. This solution is one of many initiatives from SDAIA and NCAI that are set to shape the future of the AI sector and harness the power of data to serve the national economy and Saudi society. 

 

“We will continue to seek out new ways to enhance the kingdom’s role in developing, innovating, and adopting these technologies and cement the kingdom’s leadership among data and AI-based economies.”

 

NCAI’s Chief Executive Officer Dr Majid Altuwaijri commented: “We are proud to announce SauTech as the first product from NCAI in collaboration with our partners at SCAI. The new system has been extensively trained using huge amounts of audio data capturing diverse dialects and accents to ensure the highest levels of accuracy and performance. The system places privacy as a priority, with all user data stored on servers within the kingdom to ensure the utmost level of security. This innovative solution adds tremendous value and further strengthens the kingdom’s AI capabilities.”

 

Outstanding accuracy

Eng Ayman AlRashed, Chief Executive Officer of SCAI, said: “The SauTech system delivers outstanding accuracy and recognises local dialects in a way that outperforms all current applications. This technology will create new opportunities to deploy AI across many more applications, in line with PIF’s strategy of promoting innovation, building capacity, and enabling promising sectors to achieve the goals of Vision 2030.”

 

Currently available through the ‘software as a service’ model, SauTech system will help create new opportunities to deploy AI across many more applications including assistive technologies and Interactive Voice Response systems (IVR) used in emergency services, healthcare, and banking. The technology also enables automated captioning of media, call centre analytics, automated meeting transcriptions, Conversational Agents, and voice-activated devices. 

 

Results of a benchmarking analysis carried out by aiXplain indicate that SauTech outperforms the next best system by approximately 8% and 9% on Modern Standard Arabic and Saudi dialects respectively.

 

MoUs signed

The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority and SCAI have signed MoUs with SAUDIA and stc to harness artificial intelligence technologies and language processing solutions, including SauTech, to improve the two partners’ customer experience. 

 

Work is under way to add more Arabic dialects to SauTech system, which is being exhibited for the first time at the SCAI pavilion during the Global AI Summit in Riyadh.-- TradeArabia News Service