Microsoft’s Commitment to European Cultural Heritage in the Age of AI
In a groundbreaking announcement made in Paris, Microsoft has introduced two significant initiatives aimed at preserving Europe’s rich linguistic and cultural heritage, while also enhancing the continent’s stance in the rapidly evolving AI landscape. These efforts build upon the company’s previous European Digital Commitments, which focused on expanding AI and cloud infrastructure, strengthening data privacy, improving cyber-resilience, and bolstering Europe’s digital competitiveness. The new initiatives are geared towards making European languages and cultural assets more accessible online and ensuring they are well-represented in large language models (LLMs).
The Importance of Europe’s Linguistic Diversity
Europe is home to over 200 languages and a cultural history that spans millennia, serving as a foundation for creative expression and economic activities. This linguistic diversity not only fosters communication but also drives innovation and trade. However, as the Internet increasingly becomes dominated by English-language content, largely reflecting American viewpoints, there is a growing concern that Europe’s cultural richness and commercial interests are being neglected in the datasets that train modern LLMs. Microsoft’s Vice Chair and President, Brad Smith, highlighted this concern by stating,
“AI that doesn’t understand Europe’s languages, histories, and values can’t fully serve its people, its businesses, or its future.”
Highlighting the Disparity in AI Language Models
A stark example of this linguistic imbalance can be seen in the performance of Llama 3.1, an open-source model that demonstrates over a 15-point performance gap in Greek and more than a 25-point shortfall in Latvian compared to English. This indicates a significant disparity where the model excels in English but falls short in many lesser-represented languages—an issue that is consistent across notable LLM benchmarks.
Microsoft’s Strategy for Multilingual Dataset Development
To tackle this challenge, Microsoft plans to enhance its innovation centers based in Strasbourg, France. These centers will focus on the development and curation of multilingual datasets utilizing Microsoft Azure. Collaborations with cultural institutions, academic partners, and tech firms throughout Europe will aim to broaden the availability of training data for ten underrepresented languages, including Estonian, Alsatian, Slovak, Greek, and Maltese.
Additionally, Microsoft has initiated a call for proposals to collect digital texts, transcripts, and other resources ideal for AI development purposes. Starting September 1, 2025, interested applicants can seek grants that offer Azure credits along with engineering and technical support via the AI for Good Lab website.
Revitalizing Cultural Heritage with Culture AI
This autumn, Microsoft is also set to expand its Culture AI program with an ambitious project aimed at creating a precise digital replica of the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In partnership with the French Ministry of Culture and the heritage-digitalization expert Iconem, this initiative seeks to meticulously capture the details of the historic Gothic structure, which has stood for 862 years. Previous Culture AI initiatives have successfully digitally preserved significant sites like Ancient Olympia in Greece, Mont-Saint-Michel in France, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and the Allied landing beaches of Normandy.
Empowerment Through Localization
These initiatives draw upon Microsoft’s extensive experience in localization, which spans over four decades. Currently, Windows supports more than 90 languages, incorporating all official European Union languages and several regional dialects like Basque, Catalan, Galician, Luxembourgish, and Valencian. Furthermore, Microsoft 365 offers Office interfaces in over 30 European languages. Through the integration of Europe’s languages and cultural assets into its AI and cloud services, Microsoft aspires to protect the continent’s cultural heritage while empowering its businesses and citizens in the digital age.
Importantly, the company asserts that these endeavors are purely supportive in nature, aimed at providing open data, tools, and expertise rather than proprietary resources.
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