Huawei Launches Arabic LLM and Egypt's First Public Cloud Service

Amid the skyrocketing demand for generative AI, Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies has launched the first Arabic language model and Egypt’s first public cloud service in Cairo.

Huawei’s cloud unit stated that the Arabic LLM, powered by Huawei’s self-developed AI model Pangu, has been trained with local data. This enables the 100 billion parameter model’s “understanding of the local culture, history, knowledge customs and more of the Arab world.”

The corporation stated that its LLM possesses an automatic speech recognition accuracy of 96%, allowing it to serve more than 20 Arabic-speaking nations. Additionally, the model underwent training using industry-specific datasets encompassing digital power, oil, and gas, as well as finance, to cater to diverse sectors.

William Dong, president of Huawei Cloud’s marketing, said that the LLM is trained in modern standard Arabic and can enable enterprises to build their own AI model catering to different local languages in the Arabic-speaking world for various industries such as banking and education.

“We believe that every country should have AI capabilities to preserve [their] local culture and that AI models should be developed and trained with local languages, enabling vertical industries to become more efficient,” said Jacqueline Shi, President of global marketing and sales services at Huawei Cloud.

Moreover, the new data center will support the Arabic LLM. With this, Huawei becomes the first company in the world to provide a public cloud service in Egypt. According to the company, the new Cairo region, which will provide cloud services to 28 African countries, including Egypt, Ethiopia, and Algeria, will mark Huawei’s 33rd cloud region globally.