Meet Habibi – the Chinese AI uniting 20 Arabic dialects in a Middle East first
South China Morning Post
by Zhao ZiwenFebruary 28, 2026
Chinese researchers have released the world’s first open-source text-to-speech (TTS) model that unifies more than 20 Arabic dialects in an AI framework, a move poised to expand China’s technological influence in the Middle East, according to analysts.
Led by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s X-LANCE Lab – one of China’s top audiovisual and language processing research entities – the model is named Habibi, meaning “my dear” in Arabic.
In presenting their findings, the research team spearheaded by...
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Originally published on South China Morning Post on 2/28/2026