8,000 Voices Power Galician AI: A Technological Leap for Linguistic Preservation

Galicia's 'Proxecto Nós' Achieves Milestone: 8,000 Voice Donations Fuel Galician Generative AI Galicia, Spain – In a significant development for the preservation and advancement of the Galician language, the 'Proxecto Nós' initiative has successfully collected 8,000 voice donations. This substantial contribution will be instrumental in developing a Galician generative AI, bridging the technological gap for Galician speakers. The project, a collaborative effort involving the Instituto da Lingua Galega and the data and AI consultancy SDG, marks a crucial step in integrating Galician into cutting-edge technological tools. "The same way we donate blood or tissues, it's possible to donate your voice for the future," explains Antonio Torrado, SDG Director in Galicia, highlighting the altruistic nature of the project. The donations will be used to train automatic speech recognition systems and a neural machine translation system, paving the way for more inclusive access to technology in Galician. Elisa Fernández Rei, Director of the Instituto da Lingua Galega, emphasizes the project's progress: "We already have a male and a female voice speaking beautiful Galician; we have a lot of material and resources." This sentiment is echoed by Pablo Presedo, Elisa Fernández, and Helena García of SDG, who highlight the importance of capturing diverse dialects to ensure the AI understands and uses the nuances of the language. The project's open-source nature ensures its accessibility to researchers, universities, and companies developing Galician language applications. This initiative represents a significant step towards digital inclusion and the preservation of linguistic diversity in Galicia.