Students and researchers working on a project to advance the Kurdish language in AI at the University of Kurdistan Hewler (UKH) on June 17, 2025. Photo: Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The University of Kurdistan Hewler's (UKH) artificial intelligence center has launched an initiative to integrate the Kurdish language into AI technology, a step they describe as a “national revolution.”
The project, prepared by a team of students, professors, and researchers at UKH’s Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Centre (AIIC), involves advancing the Kurdish language in AI through a website and application, and provides six advanced services for all Kurdish dialects.
“We generally use artificial intelligence. In the first phase, we try to digitize the data we have, whether voice data or text, and put it in computer format. After that, we use a set of artificial intelligence models to perform several important tasks, such as spell checking,” Aram Mahmoud, the project supervisor, told Rudaw on Tuesday.
The project includes a Kurdish language corpus, dictionary, spell check, voice and text conversion, optical character recognition (OCR), and a translation and summarization section.
“Instead of searching for each of these on several different sites, this platform gives you all of them together. You may not only need translation, video or text,” said Tariq Ahmed, director of UKH's AIIC.
Hevi Khosrawi, a project team member who holds a master’s degree in computer science, explained her desire to develop OCR in the Kurdish language.
“We have very good OCR in other languages, so I thought we could develop our models in the same way,” said Khosrawi, who has contributed all the data from her OCR research to the project.
The project is being carried out in partnership with the Kurdish Academy.
“We tried to use texts that were previously doctoral and master’s theses, because they have the fewest grammatical and spelling errors,” said Pakhshan Fahmi, a linguist at the Kurdish Academy.
The UKH was opened in 2006 and is one of the Kurdistan Region’s most prestigious universities, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in English. It was established by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani during his tenure as prime minister and is affiliated with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
The project, prepared by a team of students, professors, and researchers at UKH’s Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Centre (AIIC), involves advancing the Kurdish language in AI through a website and application, and provides six advanced services for all Kurdish dialects.
“We generally use artificial intelligence. In the first phase, we try to digitize the data we have, whether voice data or text, and put it in computer format. After that, we use a set of artificial intelligence models to perform several important tasks, such as spell checking,” Aram Mahmoud, the project supervisor, told Rudaw on Tuesday.
The project includes a Kurdish language corpus, dictionary, spell check, voice and text conversion, optical character recognition (OCR), and a translation and summarization section.
“Instead of searching for each of these on several different sites, this platform gives you all of them together. You may not only need translation, video or text,” said Tariq Ahmed, director of UKH's AIIC.
Hevi Khosrawi, a project team member who holds a master’s degree in computer science, explained her desire to develop OCR in the Kurdish language.
“We have very good OCR in other languages, so I thought we could develop our models in the same way,” said Khosrawi, who has contributed all the data from her OCR research to the project.
The project is being carried out in partnership with the Kurdish Academy.
“We tried to use texts that were previously doctoral and master’s theses, because they have the fewest grammatical and spelling errors,” said Pakhshan Fahmi, a linguist at the Kurdish Academy.
The UKH was opened in 2006 and is one of the Kurdistan Region’s most prestigious universities, offering undergraduate and graduate programs in English. It was established by Kurdistan Region President Nechirvan Barzani during his tenure as prime minister and is affiliated with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG).
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