The Minister of Communications and Information Technology Amr Talaat, during visiting China, heading a high level delegation, to participate in BRICS Future Network Innovation Forum, has witnessed the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Information Technology Industry Development Agency (ITIDA) and iFlytek, for cooperation in Artificial Intelligence (AI) in terms of capacity building, skills development, Natural Language Processing (NLP), and human speech recognition techniques.
According to the MoU, a team of Egyptian engineers from ITIDA, in cooperation with the company as part of the activities of the applied research center in AI, will work in the first phase of developing the Arabic-Mandarin language—a popular language in China— through providing training and practical application in China, for three to six months.
The two sides also agreed on cooperating in a joint development research project pertaining to developing technology in NLP and human speech recognition techniques.
Moreover, the MoU stipulates implementing a program of exchange of researchers and academics in Chinese and Egyptian universities in AI. In addition, iFlytek will coordinate with the Information Technology Institute (ITI), the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), and Anhui Institute of Information Technology (AIIT), in capacity building, including exchange or training programs that USTC or AIIT will provide in Egypt.
Furthermore, the two sides agreed that iFlytek is to provide training to the Egyptian team and help them benefit from its solutions, NLP technology and human speech.
The signing ceremony took place during the ICT Minister’s meeting with iFlytek delegation headed by CEO Yu Hu. The meeting was attended by ITIDA Vice President Hossam Osman, ICT Minister’s Advisor for AI Golestan Radwan, and a number of officials from the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT).
iFlytek is a national leading Chinese company specializing in sound and speech smart technologies, AI research, development of integrated circuits products, informatics services, and integration of e-government services.
Relevantly, Talaat and the accompanying delegation visited China Telecom and took a tour inside its exhibition that includes a number of innovative ICT solutions.
Moreover, Talaat met with President of Fiberhome Telecommunication Technologies Co., Ltd. Zhiqiang Fan and his accompanying delegation. They discussed the current cooperation between Fiberhome and Telecom Egypt (TE), as well as the possibility of establishing a factory for the company in Egypt.
The two sides also discussed cooperation in fiber optic cables, in light of the national projects implemented in Egypt to develop communication infrastructure, in the framework of digital transformation.
The meeting was attended by ITIDA Vice President Hossam Osman, TE CEO and Managing Director Adel Hamed, and a number of MCIT officials.
