Mr. António Costa, Prime Minister of the Portuguese Republic (5th from left) Presided at the Opening Ceremony for the Chinese-Portuguese-English Machine Translation Laboratory
To enhance cooperation and exchange, Professor Huang Youyi, member of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) and the Executive Vice President of the Translators Association of China, together with Professor Zhong Weihe, Co-chair of Language Big Data Alliance, visited the Chinese-Portuguese Machine Translation Laboratory at Macao Polytechnic Institute on the 9th of August and was warmly welcomed by Professor Lei Heong Iok, President of MPI. Professor Huang spoke highly of the Laboratory's Chinese-Portuguese Machine Translation engine, the world's leading translation engine providing speech recognition and other technical services support for the development of the “One Belt and One Road” initiative and “Service platform between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries”. Professor Huang expressed his hope that the laboratory would speed up research and development and contribute to the Language Services Industry in Macao in the near future.
Professor Lei Heong Iok, President of MPI noted that there are almost 200 million native Portuguese speakers around the world, adding that exchanges between China and Portuguese-speaking countries had increased in frequency, with a subsequent rising demand for services involving Chinese-Portuguese Translation and speech recognition. The Chinese-Portuguese Machine Translation Laboratory presided over by Mr. António Costa, Prime Minister of the Portuguese Republic, is jointly built by Macao Polytechnic Institute, Global Tone Communication Technology Co. Ltd and Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. The laboratory utilised such technologies as machine translation, cross-language big database and speech recognition and with data, technology and application as its future direction. With its widely distributed corpus, the goal of such a laboratory is to cover all areas of public administration, law and the economy that are closely related to Macao society.
Professor Huang Youyi also said that the establishment of the laboratory had already achieved good results in the study of academic theory and the solving of technical problems. The laboratory provides a good experimental environment for Chinese-Portuguese Translation and, at the same time, has laid a solid foundation for technical and platform support in the exchange between China and Portuguese countries in trade, economic growth and cultural affairs.
During the visit, Professor Huang and Professor Zhong Weihe also provided valuable suggestions to guide the laboratory in its development and research focus.
