Jeddah's Historic Beit Al Kottab Reopens as Irth Café and Store

The building now houses Irth Café and Store. SPA
The building now houses Irth Café and Store. SPA
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Jeddah's Historic Beit Al Kottab Reopens as Irth Café and Store

The building now houses Irth Café and Store. SPA
The building now houses Irth Café and Store. SPA

The Saudi Ministry of Culture's Historic Jeddah Program has successfully restored and rehabilitated Beit Al Kottab, a historic building in the city's UNESCO World Heritage site.

The beautifully preserved building now houses Irth Café and Store, a new platform showcasing Saudi culinary arts.
Located on Gold Street, Irth Café offers visitors a unique experience reflecting Saudi culture. The café is open daily except for Sundays, from 12 noon to 11 pm.
The Historic Jeddah Program's goal is to revitalize the area, preserve its heritage, and enhance the visitor experience. Through careful restoration and rehabilitation, the program aims to transform historic buildings into vibrant cultural and commercial spaces.



Saudi SDAIA Signs MoU with NAVER LABS and NAVER CLOUD to Develop Arabic Large Language Model 

The MoU was formalized during the third Global AI Summit (GAIN) in Riyadh. (SPA)
The MoU was formalized during the third Global AI Summit (GAIN) in Riyadh. (SPA)
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Saudi SDAIA Signs MoU with NAVER LABS and NAVER CLOUD to Develop Arabic Large Language Model 

The MoU was formalized during the third Global AI Summit (GAIN) in Riyadh. (SPA)
The MoU was formalized during the third Global AI Summit (GAIN) in Riyadh. (SPA)

The Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) signed on Tuesday a MoU with NAVER LABS and NAVER CLOUD to design an advanced language model for Arabic and its applications.

The MoU was formalized during the third Global AI Summit (GAIN) in Riyadh. It was signed on behalf of SDAIA by National Information Center Director Dr. Esam Alwagait, while Dr. Sangok Seok and Dr. Yoon Kim represented NAVER CLOUD and Dr. Choi Soo-Yeon represented NAVER Corporation.

The signing was hosted by SDAIA President Dr. Abdullah Al-Ghamdi and South Korea’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Choi-Byung- Huyk.

The partnership aims to employ the latest technical developments related to developing an Arabic language model to provide data-center solutions and services, in addition to participating in the cloud platform for digital transformation solutions.

Through a set of applications that use AI algorithms, SDAIA is focusing on boosting the position of the Arabic language in the field of AI.

The authority, in cooperation with the King Salman Global Academy for the Arabic Language, recently prepared a dictionary of data and AI to collect the most important technical terms and provide brief and simplified definitions in both Arabic and English.

SDAIA also prepared the "Your Voice" application, which enables the conversion of speech into text via a voice recognition feature in classical Arabic and local dialects, which can be used to record minutes of meetings and build interactive audio systems.

During the second Global AI Summit held in 2022, SDAIA launched the "ALLaM" application to serve the Arabic language and improve language models using the application in various fields, including: developing a model capable of writing and understanding Arabic poetry, developing an AI model capable of accurately parsing Arabic sentences, and developing a model that helps children learn the Arabic language in a fun and effective way.