Visitors wearing protective masks sit in front of a screen displaying the logos of Qualcomm Inc and Huawei Technologies Co at the World AI Conference in Shanghai, on July 9, 2020. (PHOTO/BLOOMBERG)

Saudi Arabia said on Thursday that it would partner with Huawei Technologies Co to develop Arabic-language recognition in artificial intelligence.

Majid Altuwaijri, chief executive of the National Center for Artificial Intelligence, said that the project had already started working on artificial intelligence technology specialized in the Arabic language, both spoken and written.

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During the virtual announcement on Thursday, Charles Yang, Huawei’s regional president for the Middle East, said it was “a new day” for cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Huawei

Arabic is “really under-served when it comes to AI technologies,” and Saudi Arabia wants to be a world leader in the field, Altuwaijri said by phone on Thursday. “For us to kick-start and expedite our move toward those ambitious goals, we needed really strategic partnerships.”

The kingdom also announced a memorandum of understanding with China’s Alibaba Cloud to collaborate on smart cities technology, and another with International Business Machines Corp for collaboration in artificial intelligence with a focus on health care, Altuwaijri said.

During the virtual announcement on Thursday, Charles Yang, Huawei’s regional president for the Middle East, said it was “a new day” for cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Huawei.

“We will make AI, 5G and cloud become the engine and new driver for the Saudi new digital economy,” Yang said.

The agreement also includes developing expertise within Saudi Arabia, and how the kingdom can benefit from Huawei hardware.

Alibaba Cloud will work on using data and artificial intelligence to make Saudi cities smarter “while improving their safety and security,” according to a statement. Part of that will involve facial recognition technology, Altuwaijri said, explaining that the project will begin with the capital of Riyadh, adapting Alibaba’s “City Brain” product to the Saudi context.

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“We have our own specifics in terms of population,” he said, pointing out that men wear traditional headdresses while many women cover their faces, which will “require us to provide more additional training to the algorithms.”