Semantix wins record EU translation contract, marking a breakthrough for AI in translation services

An AI-driven solution will power the translation of all official technical regulations within the EU, which could total up to hundreds of thousands of translated pages. The breakthrough solution, provided by language solutions company Semantix and its partner ESTeam, will optimise the translation spend by the EU, by processing vast amounts of linguistic data, applying smart methods to re-cycle content, and provide generated text ready to be processed by human translators before publication.

The GROW/2020/OP/0002 service contract is one of the largest translation contracts to be awarded in Europe. It covers translation between 23 European languages – a total of 506 possible language combinations. As a reference, the call for tenders offered statistics from 2018, where 280,000 target language pages were produced equaling some 70,000,000 words.

Semantix’s Chief Business Officer, Britta Aagaard, said about the project: “The sheer amount of multilingual data and formal requirements are insurmountable to securely process by humans only. Our AI-driven solution offers accuracy and consistency and allows the use of data to match translator competences and capacity.”

Machine learning is featured not only as a translation productivity tool, but also to ensure that the language specialists are matched with their fields of expertise. The content is highly technical and regulatory by nature with a wide spread of specialisations. The classification contains 13 different domains, ranging from construction and agriculture to pharmaceuticals, energy, and goods and products.

Speaking on the AI solution, Britta Aagaard said: “The vision behind the successful long-term partnership with ESTeam is to revolutionise translation by replacing traditional processes and tools with a workflow based on automated translation and human revision.”

For more information:

Britta Aagaard, Chief Business Officer, Language Solutions, Semantix, britta.aagaard@semantix.com, +45 78 799 799


Semantix is the Nordic region’s leading communication partner for multilingual services and has been providing interpreting, translation and language technology services to the public and private sectors for more than 50 years. Semantix have an annual turnover of approximately SEK 700 million and is certified in accordance with standards including ISO 9001:2015 and ISO 27001:2013. Semantix employs about 350 people and has an extensive worldwide network of thousands of language specialists. The private equity fund Segulah V L.P. is Semantix’s majority owner.