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Intel Organizes First International Speech Forum in China, Forms Advanced Speech Research Consortium with Seven Leading Universities

BEIJING, Nov. 2, 1998 -- In Beijing today, Intel opened the first International Speech Forum, bringing together the world’s leading software developers and speech technology researchers to discuss the latest trends and opportunities for PC-based speech technology. The two-day forum aims to accelerate the development and adoption of speech-enabled applications, particularly for the Chinese market. During the forum, Intel and seven of the world’s leading universities and research organizations formed an Advanced Speech Research Consortium to focus on common research goals for PC-based speech technology.

Speech-enabled applications make the PC easier to use, particularly for PC users working in languages with large character sets. "There’s a tremendous opportunity to use speech-enabled applications to enhance the role of the PC as a communications device, directly benefiting PC users around the world. In particular, Chinese people, who account for a fifth of the world’s total population, have difficulty entering Chinese text manually due to the complexity of the character set," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel vice president and general manager, Desktop Products Group.

"Speech technology today offers huge benefits as a data-input method, by removing the barrier of keyboard-based data entry -- making Chinese character input much easier -- and giving an important leap in ease-of-use to Chinese PC users," Gelsinger said.

First Ever International Speech Forum in China

The forum features experts from the world’s foremost speech-technology research institutions such as Bell Labs (Lucent), Kent Ridge Digital Labs in Singapore, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and leading speech vendors such as Andrea Electronics, Applied Language Technologies, Asiaworks, Dragon Systems, Emkay Innovation Products, IBM, InfoTalk, Lernout & Hauspie, Microsoft and Philips. Local researchers from Tsinghua University, Institute of Automation Research and Institute of Acoustics Research under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) will discuss their achievements in Chinese speech technology. More than 500 software developers, researchers, and system and peripheral vendors are expected to attend. In addition to technical presentations, the forum provides hands-on demonstrations, seminars and case studies by various vendors working on speech-enabled applications.

Intel Forms Advanced Speech Research Consortium

At the Forum, Intel announced it is forming the Advanced Speech Research Consortium with seven of the world’s leading universities and research bodies involved in the field of speech technology. The consortium members will work together on common research goals for PC-based speech technology.

Dr. Robert Yung, director of the Intel China Research Center, and chief technologist for Intel China, today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the representatives of the seven universities and research institutes forming the consortium. The founding members include the Chinese Academy of Science, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Oregon Graduate Institute, Tsinghua University and University of Waterloo in Canada. More universities and research organizations from around the world are expected to join the consortium.

"The consortium will facilitate and enable long-term research on speech technology," said Yung, who initiated the project. "Members will engage in collaborative research in speech technologies toward developing an intelligent, listening and talking computer."

More about Intel’s Speech Initiatives

Intel is working on many initiatives to enhance the role of the PC as a communications device. Speech-enabled applications are one of the key elements to increase the ease-of-use of PCs. Through joint efforts with leading PC industry companies, Intel has been involved in developing specifications such as the Audio Codec ’97 and PC ’99 System Design Guide that optimize the PC platform for speech recognition technology. At the same time, Intel is combining additional instructions for enhanced speech processing in its future generation processors.

Speech technology has been an ongoing research topic since the 1950s, but it’s only now that a convergence of technology breakthroughs is making speech ready for broader use. Those breakthroughs include:

a steady increase in affordable computing power, most recently the Pentium® II processor 450 MHz;
development of the overall PC platform such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) and faster memory technologies;
improvements in speech algorithms and advances in signal processing.
broad industry support from a range of software developers pursuing various types of speech-enabled applications.

Intel, the world's largest chip maker, is also a leading manufacturer of computer, networking and communications products. Additional information about Intel is available at www.intel.com/pressroom.