Machine translation technology from SDL

SDL has introduced the XMT machine translation platform. 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. It allows different translation algorithms to be used for different language pairs, increasing the quality of the output. The company adds that XMT permits the quick development and deployment of new machine translation capabilities, including SDL Language Learning, which brings artificial intelligence to machine translation by empowering the engines to learn and apply individual user language preferences.

The company reports XMT improves the quality of translations of informal and “social” language by 62 percent when compared with traditional machine translation technology, enabling multilingual social media monitoring, communication and intelligence analysis. Further, says SDL, XMT features significant enhancements to the accuracy of Asian languages previously difficult to translate.

XMT will be available via SDL’s suite of machine translation solutions including the Language Cloud and BeGlobal. It provides support for more than 100 language pairs and five industry-specific vertical engines. SDL adds that 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.