SDL Unveils Next Gen Machine Translation Technology That Goes a Step Closer to Integrating Machines with People

XMT™ reduces the gap between people and machines by introducing artificial intelligence to real-time translation

SDL (LSE: SDL) today introduced the next generation of machine translation technology – XMT, a core component of the Language pillar within SDL’s Customer Experience Cloud. This powerful technology will become an essential tool in bringing down the barriers of multilingual communication by providing a scalable infrastructure for the development and rapid deployment of real-time translation capabilities – a necessity in today’s multilingual world.

With a growing number of people, devices and “things” transmitting information around the world, instant real-time translation is essential for international communication and analysis and extracting knowledge from big data.

Developed by the SDL Language Research Group, XMT is a complete rewrite of machine translation technology developed to address the limitations of previous generations of machine translation. Current machine translation technologies apply a one-size-fits-all solution to all language pairs. XMT allows different translation algorithms to be used for different language pairs, drastically increasing the quality of the output. XMT will also allow for the quick development and deployment of ground-breaking new MT capabilities, including SDL Language Learning™, which will bring artificial intelligence to machine translation by empowering the engines to learn and apply individual user language preferences.

Mark Lancaster, SDL CEO and Founder, showcased a selection of these translation breakthroughs, currently in development, during his keynote at SDL Innovate 2015 San Francisco, including:

• SDL Language Learning, which brings artificial intelligence to machine translation. Translation engines learn, adapt and improve translated output based on feedback from human reviewers providing continuous improvement and refinement never before seen in statistical machine translation
• Improvement in the quality of translations of informal and “social” language by 62 percent when compared to traditional machine translation technology, opening a new realm of multilingual social media monitoring, communication and intelligence analysis
• Extreme enhancements in the accuracy of Asian languages previously difficult to translate

“The SDL Language Research Group has always been at the forefront of developing machine translation technology including solutions widely used in the industry today. The launch of XMT marks a new era in automated translation which will help both organizations and individual’s deal with the Big Data, Big Communication, Big Content challenges of the mid-21st century,” said Lancaster. “Without greater automation it is clear that the translation industry will not be able to keep up with the growing demand for local language information. XMT will provide new solutions for both real-time translation and essential productivity capabilities to the translation industry.”

XMT will be made available via SDL’s suite of machine translation solutions including SDL Language Cloud and SDL BeGlobal, and will provide support for over 100 language pairs and five industry-specific vertical engines. The XMT engines can be further trained on an organization’s specific vocabulary and terminology to produce a customized solution. As part of the overall translation ecosystem, XMT engines can also be coupled with human post-editing to further improve translation quality and reduce time-to-market for translated content.

SDL machine translation is a core component of the company’s integrated language platform. By integrating XMT into the overall enterprise translation ecosystem, SDL provides a translation solution for every type of communication, allowing organizations to extend their multilingual assets to new languages and types of content.

To learn more about XMT, Machine Translation and SDL Language Learning, please visit our website and read our blog.

About SDLSDL (LSE: SDL) is the leader in global customer experience. With a completely integrated cloud solution for content management, analytics, language and documentation, SDL solves the complexity of managing your brand’s digital footprint as it grows across multiple languages, cultures, websites, devices and channels. Seventy-nine of the top 100 global companies trust SDL to help them create authentic, in-context customer experiences that drive demand and loyalty. SDL brings your brand to the world, and the world to your brand. Learn more at SDL.com. Follow SDL on Facebook and Twitter.

SDLJessica Hohn-Cabana, [e-mail] CommunicationsEmily Held/ Jenny [e-mail]