ABU DHABI — The UAE is setting a benchmark for integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into the preservation, development, and global dissemination of the Arabic language, ensuring it remains relevant and capable of meeting future demands. Various state institutions are spearheading AI-powered initiatives spanning publishing, education, lexicography, and creative content creation.
A standout achievement is the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language, a monumental project completed last year in Sharjah, the “Capital of Arab Culture.” It documents the evolution of Arabic through history and paved the way for the “GPT Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language”—an AI-enhanced platform offering over 20 million Arabic words. This innovative tool enables users to write and read texts, convert them into videos, and continuously expand the dictionary’s content. The project is a collaboration between the Arabic Language Academy in Sharjah and the Emirates Scholar Research Centre.
The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Foundation is advancing digital culture and knowledge with its Digital Knowledge Hub, an Arabic platform that produces, organises, and aggregates digital content. By last year, it had amassed over 800,000 titles and 8.5 million digital items across 18 specialised libraries.
In Abu Dhabi, the Arabic Language Centre, part of the Department of Culture and Tourism, has launched AI-based publishing tools, including the first comprehensive Arabic-English digital dictionary employing AI and computational linguistics. It contains over 7,000 core modern terms with automated pronunciation, simplified definitions, contextual examples, images, and detailed grammatical and semantic classifications.
In collaboration with New York University Abu Dhabi and Zayed University, the centre also introduced the Balanced Arabic Readability Corpus (BAREC)—a linguistic database of 10 million words drawn from diverse literary genres and topics. At the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, the centre unveiled the Digital Square initiative, a dedicated technology space promoting AI adoption in publishing and literature.
Educational institutions across the UAE are also adopting AI-driven tools to enhance Arabic language teaching, ensuring that technology strengthens rather than sidelines the region’s linguistic and cultural heritage.
