"The Lithuanian language is unique and one of the oldest languages in the world: it has a unique linguistic content, dialects and cultural heritage. The preservation and wider use of the mother tongue, especially in the digital space, is very important for Lithuania and its economy. Therefore, in order to accelerate the technological progress of the Lithuanian language, we need to create the necessary resources - a phonetic and textual library. This will enable the future development of innovative AI products and ensure the fluent, correct and versatile use of the Lithuanian language through technological solutions. This would allow all of us to use the Lithuanian language even more in the digital space," said Aušrinė Armonaitė, the Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
The Ministry of the Economy and Innovation is launching 5 calls for Lithuanian research and study institutions to develop Lithuanian language resources for artificial intelligence solutions and products. The total value of the calls is more than EUR 9 million.
The first call, worth €3.8 million, will develop a phonetic library of the Lithuanian language. It will be integrated into a set of technological solutions to support speech recognition for people with disabilities and Lithuanian language learners.
The other four calls, worth €5.27 million, are for the development of text libraries for the Lithuanian language: €2.2 million for the development of a depersonalised text library, €1.48 million for the development of morphologically and syntactically annotated models, €770,000 for the development of a question-answer pair library, and €800,000 for the development of a deep learning-based automated summary library of Lithuanian mixed texts.
"Bringing AI technologies closer to the public by making them available in Lithuanian would encourage the use of these technologies and make it easier and simpler for people to communicate, get information or use services such as personal assistants, language translation tools or health services. It would also make it even easier for the scientific and business sectors to efficiently develop and deploy advanced and innovative tools," said Erika Kuročkina, the Deputy Minister of the Economy and Innovation.
Expanding the use of digital services related to the Lithuanian language would involve both the public and private sectors.
The Central Project Management Agency (CPMA) will adopt the project implementation plans.
Applications for the development of a phonetic library, question-answer pairs and summaries of mixed Lithuanian-language texts are open until 30 April. The other applications, for the development of a depersonalised text library and for the development of morphologically and syntactically annotated text library models, are open until 31 May.
The full terms and conditions of the call are available on the European Union Investment website.
Last year, the Ministry of the Economy and Innovation implemented a €1 billion plan to strengthen the country's economy, with calls worth more than €957.5 million to innovate, increase investment, strengthen the green economy and develop the digitalisation of the state and business. Nearly 3,000 companies and institutions have applied for funding.
Around €500 million of funding is expected to be announced this year.
The measure to develop artificial intelligence systems for the Lithuanian language will be implemented under the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
