Alibaba’s international commerce business, Alibaba International Digital Commerce (AIDC) Group, has launched a new large language model focused specifically on translations (via SCMP).
The model – Macro MT – is hoped to aid with cross-border ecommerce and trade efforts by eliminating language barriers as well as integrating with other business scenarios and everyday communication.
The news comes not long after AIDC VP Zhang Kaifu committed to leveraging generative AI to help with translation, content creation and more (via Reuters).
Alibaba launches AI model for translation
“Macro MT will seamlessly integrate into Alibaba International’s overarching business strategies, fortifying the operational backbone of our diverse cross-border e-commerce platforms such as AliExpress, Lazada, Trendyol and more," Zhang confirmed.
The model offers integration into systems managing product listings, customer service and search, promising translations of titles, descriptions, image captions and keywords.
From launch, 15 languages will be supported, including Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese and Korean, however Alibaba is preparing to add more languages and improve translation quality in the future.
Beyond integration within Alibaba’s platforms, AIDC aims to make Macro MT available globally, extending its benefits to a wider range of merchants as well as individual and business users outside of ecommerce. Macro MT is intended to address the pitfalls of existing translation tools.
The decision to build such a model came after the company noticed that “existing translation tools fall short in navigating the intricacies of culturally nuanced and idiom-laden expressions.”
Zhang added the model had already surpassed some world-leading translation models, as demonstrated by its performance on the Flores benchmark which focus on translating to and from English and low-resource languages that typically get less support.
