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Multilingualism, translation and language-based AI services

Languages and AI – using AI to break down language barriers

The European Commission is committed to enhancing Europe’s competitiveness through digital technologies and artificial intelligence. Making safe, lawful and trustworthy AI widely available in the EU will contribute to competitiveness and technological sovereignty and open the way to making the EU more connected, innovative and accessible.  

Through its cooperation with the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology (DG CONNECT) under the Digital Europe programme, DG Translation has a proven track record of implementing AI-based multilingual services. The aim is also to encourage other EU public administrations in similar efforts and to strengthen Europe’s digital and technological sovereignty.

An EU large language model to promote language equality

Existing large language models (LLMs) often fall short of the specific needs of the public sector and other users in Europe. Models that cover only a limited number of languages and underperform on low-resource languages are major obstacles for multilingual organisations and societies.  The Commission is working to address limitations affecting low-resource EU official languages such as Irish, Maltese and Latvian by using the high-quality multilingual data generated by EU institutions to contribute to the European ecosystem of LLMs.

AI-based multilingual services – using EU language data to innovate

The Commission continues to develop advanced AI-based multilingual services to enable communication across languages.

These services are intended to support a more inclusive and competitive Europe, providing hands-on tools to users including public administrations, civil society and small businesses.

European Language Data Space

All these projects fit into a wider context: the European Language Data Space. The Commission is working to build a trustworthy and effective data market for the exchange of language resources in the public and private sectors, in line with the European data strategy.  

The Language Data Space is being set up as a network where users can collect, create, share and reuse multilingual data. They make their language data available for free or under certain conditions (possibly including a fee). Software will allow data to be exchanged via a network of core services and platforms (or ‘nodes’).  

Discover the European Language Data Space 

Breaking down language barriers

Our AI and data services

  • help small businesses harness the power of AI to reach a broader audience and enhance their competitiveness in the EU market and beyond
  • facilitate multilingual communication and access to information through AI-powered multilingual language processing services
  • contribute to the EU’s democratic processes by empowering its citizens to participate actively in public debates, consultations and decision-making regardless of their linguistic background
  • support the modernisation of EU and national public administrations (e.g. by facilitating the implementation and enforcement of EU law)
  • improve the provision of digital services so that crucial information is accurately conveyed in every EU official language, for the benefit of EU citizens and businesses.