The Minister of Industry and New Technologies of the Republic of Tajikistan, Sherali Kabir, held a video conference today with the CEO of the Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) of the UAE, His Excellency Shahab Issa Abu Shahab. The conference was attended by the leadership of the Artificial Intelligence Council at the Ministry, as well as the heads of ATRC departments, including the Technology Innovation Institute (TII) and the VentureOne holding company based in Abu Dhabi.
During the negotiations, key areas of cooperation were discussed, including:
Joint research in the field of language models: An important aspect of the partnership will be the collaboration between Tajikistan's AI lab "zehn" and CNTXT, a tech company specializing in cloud solutions and data analytics, working with Google and AWS. The plan is to improve the multimodal capabilities of the Emirati language model Falcon, with a focus on processing regional dialects, including less common ones. Advanced methods of the Tajik synthetic data algorithm zGAN will be applied for this purpose.
Development of a Tajik language model based on Falcon: Falcon is a modern language model developed in the UAE, known for its high performance and adaptability to various languages and cultural nuances. Using Falcon technologies, an adapted version will be created to account for the unique linguistic and cultural characteristics of the Tajik language. This will enable the development of digital services in Tajik, including voice assistants, machine translation systems, and educational platforms.
Involvement of Emirati AI companies in the new tech hub, Area AI, in Dushanbe: ATRC will support CNTXT and VentureOne in launching their products in Central Asia with a base in Area AI in Dushanbe. VentureOne, a division of ATRC, is responsible for the commercialization of the Council's technological developments. This will provide Tajik enterprises access to advanced solutions in AI, big data, and cloud technologies, as well as attract foreign investment to Area AI.
The parties expressed confidence that the partnership will drive the digital transformation of Tajikistan and strengthen its position as an AI tech hub in Central Asia. The importance of synergy with the UAE's experience in AI and the unique needs of the Tajik market was emphasized. The next step will be to form a working group to detail roadmaps for each area of cooperation.
Cooperation with ATRC marks a new stage in the implementation of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy of the Republic of Tajikistan, opening access to global innovations and creating a foundation for the country’s sustainable technological sovereignty.
