The Baltic language technology company Tilde has won the European Commission’s funding to develop a large language model for smaller European languages, including Lithuanian and Latvian.
According to the company’s press release, it won the top prize in the Large AI Grand Challenge competition, which includes 250,000 euros and access to Europe’s most powerful supercomputer LUMI.
“Global companies developing artificial intelligence (AI) solutions are focusing on English and other major languages. ChatGPT’s results in major languages are of much higher quality than in Lithuanian, Latvian, and other smaller European languages. The European Commission prize money and access to one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers will allow our team to work on incorporating Lithuanian, Latvian and other European languages into AI solutions,” Artūras Vasiļevskis, board chairman of Tilde Group, is quoted in the statement.
“In order to achieve a wider use of AI in these languages, we will build the new model according to the principles of open science and open source. It will be freely available to both researchers and developers of commercial solutions,” he adds.
Tilde IT technology department head Giedrius Karauskas says the company will get one-year access to the Finland-based LUMI supercomputer, making use of 2 million processing hours to develop its large language model.
Set up in a former paper mill in Karaani, LUMI is the world’s fifth-most powerful supercomputer with 10,240 graphic processors.
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