Google Translate adds support for 110 new languages thanks to AI
Google announced the added support for 110 new languages in its Translate app. Since the app supported 113 languages prior to the update, this is certainly the biggest upgdate yet.
Google used its PaLM 2 AI language model to train the software in 110 new languages. The AI proved to be particularly good at learning languages related to one another, such as Hindi, Awadhi and Marwadi, as well as French creoles like Seychellois Creole and Mauritian Creole.
The new update also brings support for Cantonese, which, according to Google, has been one of the most requested languages throughout the years. But Cantonese was a hard nut to crack as it overlaps with Mandarin, and it's hard to find data to train the AI model.
The blog post adds that about 25% of the newly added languages are African, each language added is spoken by at least a million people worldwide and a couple of them are spoken by hundreds of millions.