French mobile operator Orange announced plans to use OpenAI's latest AI models to work with African languages. Many African languages, totaling over 2,000, have been left behind in the AI field due to challenges such as limited data and computational resources. Orange, which operates in 18 African countries, signed a deal with OpenAI last year to access its pre-release AI models and customize large language models for regional African languages. This year, the company began using OpenAI's Whisper speech model for African languages and aims to expand its work with more complex applications using newer models.
OpenAI's open-weight models allow developers like Orange to adjust the models for specific tasks without needing original training data. Orange plans to fine-tune these models using its collected language samples and deploy them locally. The company intends to offer these fine-tuned models for free to local governments and public authorities, with the goal of bridging the digital divide and fostering an ecosystem where African languages are fully integrated into AI.