The 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING 2025) will be held in Abu Dhabi in January 2025, hosted by Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (MBZUAI). COLING is a major biennial NLP and AI conference that brings together leaders from research centers, academia, and industry. The conference will feature keynote talks, presentations, workshops, and tutorials, with 1,500 expected participants. Why it matters: Hosting COLING underscores the UAE's growing role in AI and NLP research and provides a platform to address regional linguistic challenges and advance AI technologies.
NYUAD and MBZUAI co-hosted the 2022 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) in Abu Dhabi from December 7-11. EMNLP is a top-tier NLP and AI conference organized by the ACL special interest group on linguistic data (SIGDAT). MBZUAI's Natural Language Processing Department is actively developing NLP datasets and methods to solve social problems. Why it matters: Hosting EMNLP in the UAE highlights the growing importance of NLP research in the region and the increasing contributions of local institutions like MBZUAI to the field.
The 31st International Conference on Computational Linguistics (COLING 2025) is being held in Abu Dhabi from January 18-24, hosted by MBZUAI. The conference features paper presentations, demonstrations, keynote speeches, workshops, and tutorials, with over 1,500 attendees. MBZUAI faculty and students contributed 22 papers to the conference, including research on fact-checking and cross-cultural content. Why it matters: Hosting COLING 2025 highlights the UAE's growing role as a hub for AI and NLP research, particularly in Arabic language processing.
MBZUAI faculty and students will present 44 papers at the Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP) conference in Singapore. Research topics include disinformation detection, social media analysis, dialogue generation, and Arabic LLMs. Preslav Nakov, Iryna Gurevych, Timothy Baldwin, Alham Fikri Aji, and Muhammad Abdul-Mageed are among the MBZUAI researchers presenting at the conference. Why it matters: MBZUAI's strong presence at a top NLP conference highlights the UAE's growing contributions to cutting-edge AI research and its increasing global prominence in the field.
An MBZUAI team won the best paper award at the inaugural Arabic Natural Language Processing Conference for their work on processing Arabic speech. Their study establishes a new approach to tackle the complexities of spoken Arabic, which differs significantly from text-based language models. The team's approach aims to advance new tools for Arabic speakers by addressing challenges like intonation and the continuous nature of speech. Why it matters: This award highlights the importance of specialized research in Arabic NLP, as mainstream LLMs often face limitations in accurately processing the nuances of Arabic speech.