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DeepL rides high amid AI translation boom

The German company’s neural networks have given it an edge, but competition is fierce

Translation is an ancient art — as old, perhaps, as civilisation itself. Some of the earliest surviving human texts, Mesopotamian clay tablets, include lists of equivalent words in different languages.

Ancient roots, however, are no impediment to innovation, and the rise of “generative” artificial intelligence (AI) — such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT — has triggered a growth spurt in translation technology. Data provider Statista forecasts that the global market for AI-based translation (specifically “natural language processing”, or NLP) will grow from about $5bn in 2023 to about $12bn by 2030.

One company hoping