Saudi Arabia Introduces First Arabic-Speaking AI-powered Robot; Sara

Saudi Arabia introduces its first robot, Sara, that can communicate in the Arabic language and its different dialects, perform popular dances, and respond to inquiries. Sara has been welcoming visitors to the Kingdom’s Digital Pavilion at the LEAP23 conference in Riyadh, state news agency SPA reported Tuesday.

Sara has a built-in camera that uses artificial intelligence to recognize when people standing in front of the robot. It will start a conversation when a visitor welcomes it with the phrase “Hello Sara”.

Sara contains a pre-trained model that recognizes different dialects from within the Kingdom, analyses sentences and understands their content, then provides the appropriate answer and sends it in the form of text.

Sara is one of the features at this year’s LEAP which is being held at the Riyadh Front Expo Center from Monday, February 6 to Thursday, February 9. This is the second edition of a major technology conference, with representatives from companies including Snap, Aramco, and Zoom due to hold exhibitions.

The LEAP conference kicked off with an announcement from cloud computing service Oracle pledging a $1.5 billion investment into Saudi Arabia.

Last year’s event racked up $6.4 billion worth of investments into technology in the Kingdom, which is striving to modernize its economy. It will feature more than 720 speakers from 50 countries. Other exhibitors include Google, NEOM, Mastercard, Ericsson, and John Lee, chief executive of the Hong Kong special administrative region.

In total, more than 100,000 people are expected to attend LEAP, which was organized by the Kingdom’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) in conjunction with Tahaluf – a strategic joint venture co-owned by Informa PLC and the Saudi Federation for Cyber Security and Programming (SAFCSP).

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enhanced its game-changer status in the global data and artificial intelligence (AI) sectors with the opening installment of DeepFest – a new co-located event held in partnership with the Saudi Data & Artificial Intelligence Authority (SDAIA) – on the side-lines of LEAP23 (www.OneGiantLEAP.com), the world’s most visionary tech event.

The inaugural DeepFest has gathered drivers of the global AI ecosystem to unveil multi-sector initiatives in a three-day thought-leadership conference with sector-specific tracks, training, live demos, and startup pitches.

Complemented by a dedicated exhibition featuring companies transforming the world we live and work in, the DeepFest conference program – themed AI Beyond Imagination – homes in on AI implementation in areas such as clean tech, the Metaverse, women in technology, and more – including robotics.

There will also be celebrity guests who are active in the technology industry, including rapper Will.i.am and footballer Charles Puyol.

Saudi Arabia is putting itself at the forefront of emerging tech through large-scale adoption and ambitious pilot projects. Its ambition will be showcased on a global stage and the Kingdom will become a hub that connects three continents. LEAP is a manifestation of this ambition. A seismic event that accelerates the adoption of technology and transforms Saudi Arabia’s economy. Together with LEAP, the Kingdom will see mass tech adoption, a shift away from oil as the principal strategic economic resource, and instead, become a regional hub for both traditional and emerging technology.

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