Microsoft looks to boost AI performance in European languages
Microsoft
is investing millions of dollars to funnel more European-language data into AI development, company president Brad Smith told AFP Monday.
With today's leading AI models mostly trained on material in English, "the survival of these languages and the health of these cultures is quite literally at stake" without a course correction, Smith said in an interview.
AI models are "less capable when it is in a language that has insufficient data," he added -- which could push more users to switch to English even when it is not their native language.
Microsoft will from September set up research units in the eastern French city Strasbourg to "help expand the availability of
multilingual data
for AI development" in at least 10 of the European Union's 24 languages, including Estonian and Greek.
The work will include digitising books and recording hundreds of hours of audio.
"This isn't about creating data for Microsoft to own. It is about creating data for the public to be able to use," Smith said, adding that the information would be shared on an open-source basis.
The US-based company has in recent months striven to position itself as especially compatible with a gathering political push for European technological sovereignty.
Leaders in the bloc have grown increasingly nervous at their dependency on US tech firms and infrastructure since Donald Trump's reelection to the White House.
In June, Microsoft said it was stepping up cooperation with European governments on cybersecurity and announced new "
data sovereignty
" measures for its data centers on the continent.
Smith said that Monday's announcement was just the latest evidence of the company's commitment to Europe.
Most leading AI firms are American or Chinese, although Europe has some standouts like France's Mistral or Franco-American platform Hugging Face.
Away from Microsoft, some European initiatives such as TildeLM are pushing to develop local-language AI models.
The Windows and Office developer also said Monday that it was working on a digital recreation of Paris' Notre-Dame cathedral that it plans to gift to the French state, as well as digitising items from the country's BNF national library and Decorative Arts Museum.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
TCS to lay off over 12,000 employees this year; mid, senior level staff to be impacted
New Delhi: India's largest IT services firm, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is set to lay off about 2%, or 12,261 employees, of its global workforce this year, with the majority of those impacted belonging to middle and senior grades. As of June 30, 2025, TCS's workforce stood at 6,13,069. It increased its workforce by 5,000 employees in the recently concluded April-June quarter. The move is part of the company's broader strategy to become a "future-ready organisation", focusing on investments in technology, AI deployment, market expansion, and workforce realignment, TCS said in a statement. "TCS is on a journey to become a Future-Ready organisation. This includes strategic initiatives on multiple fronts, including investing in new-tech areas, entering new markets, deploying AI at scale for our clients and ourselves, deepening our partnerships, creating next-gen infrastructure, and realigning our workforce model. "Towards this, a number of reskilling and redeployment initiatives have been underway. As part of this journey, we will also be releasing associates from the organisation whose deployment may not be feasible. This will impact about 2% of our global workforce, primarily in the middle and the senior grades, over the course of the year," it said. TCS will provide appropriate benefits, outplacement, counselling, and support to the impacted employees, it added The move comes at a time when India's top IT services companies have delivered single-digit revenue growth in Q1FY26, capping off a somewhat-sobering June quarter as macroeconomic instability and geopolitical tensions weighed on global tech demand and delayed client decision-making. For TCS, the revenue rose 1.3% year-on-year to Rs 63,437 crore, bottomline improved 5.9% to Rs 12,760 crore in Q1FY26. TCS MD and Chief Executive K Krithivasan recently said the company is experiencing a "demand contraction" due to the continued uncertainties on the macroeconomic and geopolitical fronts, and added that he does not see a double-digit revenue growth in FY26. Krithivasan explained the delays in decision-making experienced in the preceding quarter have "intensified" now, and hoped for the discretionary spends - a prime mover of revenue growths for IT companies - would return once the uncertainties ebb. Microsoft, the second most valuable publicly listed company after Nvidia globally, has so far laid off over 15,000 employees in 2025, that is 7% of the company's global workforce. In a memo to over 200,000 employees last week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said the layoffs this year have been "weighing heavily" on him. "This is the enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value," he said in the memo to staff. He added: "Progress isn't linear. It's dynamic, sometimes dissonant, and always demanding. But it's also a new opportunity for us to shape, lead through, and have greater impact than ever before." According to - a platform that tracks global tech industry layoffs - over 80,000 tech workers have been laid off across 169 tech companies in 2025 alone. In 2024, that number stood at a staggering 1.5 lakh across 551 tech companies - the stark numbers coinciding as much with global macroeconomic woes as with deep debate in tech circles about the impact of AI on job roles, workforce, and employability.
Time of India
an hour ago
- Time of India
US to release result of probe into chip imports in two weeks
The Trump administration will announce the results of a national security probe into imports of semiconductors in two weeks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said on Sunday, as President Donald Trump suggested higher tariffs were on the horizon. Lutnick told reporters after a meeting between Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen that the investigation was one of the "key reasons" the European Union sought to negotiate a broader trade agreement that would "resolve all things at one time." Trump said many companies would be investing in semiconductor manufacturing in the United States, including some from Taiwan and other places, to avoid getting hit by new tariffs. He said von der Leyen had avoided the pending chips tariffs "in a much better way." Trump and von der Leyen announced a new framework trade agreement that includes across-the-board 15% tariffs on EU imports entering the United States. Trump said the agreement included autos, which face a higher 25% tariff under a separate sectoral tariff action. The Trump administration in April said it was investigating whether extensive reliance on foreign imports of pharmaceuticals and semiconductors posed a national security threat. The probe, being conducted under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, could lay the groundwork for new tariffs on imports in both sectors. The Trump administration has begun separate investigations under the same law into imports of copper and lumber. Earlier probes completed during Trump's first term formed the basis for 25% tariffs rolled out since his return to the White House in January on steel and aluminum and on the auto industry. Trump has upended global trade with a series of aggressive levies against trading partners, including a 10% tariff that took effect in April, with that rate set to increase sharply for most larger trading partners from August 1. The U.S. relies heavily on chips imported from Taiwan, something Democratic former President Joe Biden sought to reverse during his term by granting billions of dollars in Chips Act awards to lure chipmakers to expand production in the United States.
Mint
an hour ago
- Mint
US-EU trade deal: Winners, losers, and what's missing? Who benefits and what new deal mean?
US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have unveiled a broad trade agreement that sets 15% tariffs on most European imports. This averts Trump's earlier warning of a 30% rate if a deal isn't struck by 1 August. These tariffs, import taxes applied to European goods bought by Americans, could raise prices for US consumers and reduce profits for European businesses and their US partners. Here are some things to know about the trade deal between the United States and the European Union: Trump and von der Leyen's announcement, made during Trump's visit to one of his golf courses in Scotland, leaves many details to be filled in. The headline figure is a 15% tariff rate on 'the vast majority' of European goods brought into the US, including cars, computer chips and pharmaceuticals. it's lower than the 20% Trump initially proposed, and lower than his threats of 50% and then 30%. Von der Leyen said the two sides agreed on zero tariffs on both sides for a range of 'strategic' goods-Aircraft and aircraft parts, certain chemicals, semiconductor equipment, certain agricultural products, and some natural resources and critical raw materials. Specifics were lacking. She said the two sides 'would keep working' to add more products to the list. Additionally, the EU side would purchase what Trump said was USD 750 billion worth of natural gas, oil and nuclear fuel to replace Russian energy supplies, and Europeans would invest an additional USD 600 billion in the US. Trump said the 50% US tariff on imported steel would remain; von der Leyen said the two sides agreed to further negotiations to fight a global steel glut, reduce tariffs and establish import quotas, that is, set amounts that can be imported, often at a lower rate. Trump said pharmaceuticals were not included in the deal. Von der Leyen said the pharmaceuticals issue was 'on a separate sheet of paper' from Sunday's deal. Where the USD 600 billion for additional investment would come from was not specified. And von der Leyen said that when it came to farm products, the EU side made clear that 'there were tariffs that could not be lowered,' without specifying which products. The 15% rate removes Trump's threat of a 30% tariff. It's still much higher than the average tariff before Trump came into office, of around 1%, and higher than Trump's minimum 10% baseline tariff. Higher tariffs, or import taxes, on European goods mean sellers in the U.S. would have to either increase prices for consumers, risking loss of market share or swallow the added cost in terms of lower profits. The higher tariffs are expected to hurt export earnings for European firms and slow the economy. The 10% baseline applied while the deal was negotiated was already sufficiently high to make the European Union's executive commission cut its growth forecast for this year from 1.3% to 0.9%. Von der Leyen said the 15% rate was 'the best we could do' and credited the deal with maintaining access to the US market and providing 'stability and predictability for companies on both sides.' German Chancellor Friedrich Merz welcomed the deal, which avoided 'an unnecessary escalation in transatlantic trade relations" and said that 'we were able to preserve our core interests,' while adding that 'I would have very much wished for further relief in transatlantic trade.' The Federation of German Industries was blunter. "Even a 15% tariff rate will have immense negative effects on export-oriented German industry," said Wolfgang Niedermark, a member of the federation's leadership. While the rate is lower than threatened, "the big caveat to today's deal is that there is nothing on paper, yet," said Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro at ING bank. 'With this disclaimer in mind and at face value, today's agreement would clearly bring an end to the uncertainty of recent months. An escalation of the US-EU trade tensions would have been a severe risk for the global economy," Brzeski said. 'This risk seems to have been avoided.' When asked whether European carmakers could still compete under the new 15% tariff, von der Leyen noted that the rate is significantly lower than the previous 27.5% which included Trump's 25% tariff on foreign cars, along with the existing 2.5% U.S. car import duty. The effect on some companies is expected to be considerable. Automaker Volkswagen, for instance, reported a $1.5 billion loss in profit during the first half of the year due to the higher tariffs. Mercedes-Benz dealers in the US have said they are holding the line on 2025 model year prices 'until further notice.' The German automaker has a partial tariff shield because it makes 35% of the Mercedes-Benz vehicles sold in the U.S. in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, but the company said it expects prices to undergo 'significant increases' in the coming years. Before Trump returned to office, the US and the EU maintained relatively low tariff rates within the world's largest bilateral trading relationship, totalling around $2 trillion annually. Combined, the U.S. and EU account for 44% of the global economy. According to the Brussels-based Bruegel think tank, the average U.S. tariff on European goods was 1.47%, while the EU's average tariff on American products stood at 1.35%. Trump has complained about the EU's 198 billion-euro trade surplus in goods, which shows Americans buy more from European businesses than the other way around, and has said the European market is not open enough for US-made cars. Von der Leyen said the 15% rate was 'the best we could do' and credited the deal with maintaining access to the US market. Even a 15% tariff rate will have immense negative effects on export-oriented German industry. However, American companies fill some of the trade gap by outselling the EU when it comes to services such as cloud computing, travel bookings, and legal and financial services. And some 30% of European imports are from American-owned companies, according to the European Central Bank.
