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ASC27: human-centred Artificial Intelligence

With Artificial Intelligence, will we all be able to speak complex languages we do not know? It has already happened to Beppe Grillo thanks to ASC27, a young Italian start-up that achieved this by exploiting AI and machine learning.

reading time3 minutes

A video in which Beppe Grillo speaks Chinese fluently has recently gone viral. How did the well-known politician learn such a complex language so quickly? In reality, things are a little different: Beppe Grillo, in fact, agreed to collaborate with an Artificial Intelligence algorithm capable of generating the video we saw.

Serving Healthcare

A ‘small miracle’ created by Italian start-up ASC27 s.r.l., an Italian company founded in 2020 and already ranked in the WAIC Top 50, winner of the European selection for the WAIC– World Artificial Intelligence Conference World Congress in Shanghai 2023 thanks to a healthcare solution capable – again through an algorithm – of predicting the development of Alzheimer’s in patients with 90% accuracy thanks to machine learning techniques.

How to create an avatar

But how did the algorithm work in the case of the video we are talking about? The software was fed a video of Grillo that allowed it to study his movements, posture and expressions; the same was done with an audio file, and all this allowed it to create the avatar. At this point, the AI algorithm translated the speech provided by the politician into Chinese and generated the audio.

A recent story, an international success

It all stems from the passion for cybersecurity and AI of entrepreneur Nicola Grandis, born in Abruzzo in 1978 and a graduate in computer science. Grandis founded ASC27 S.r.l. in Rome, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and now has a team of 30 people, with an average age of around 26.

Within a few months, the company developed the ASIMOV software, which helps journalists create texts and podcasts. ‘The goal,’ Grandis explains in an interview with AGI, ‘is to work alongside humans. Asimov non vuole sostituirsi a nessuno, ma aiutare nella realizzazione dei contenuti. It frees journalists from repetitive tasks (such as selecting the best sources) and identifies upcoming trends’. Another innovation recognised in Shanghai in 2021 that deserved a place in the Top 10.

The growth of Made in Italy Artificial Intelligence

Today, ASC27, with offices in Milan, Rome, Bologna, Chieti, and São Paulo, Brazil (ASC27 | América Latina), boasts one of the most extensive product portfolios on the market and collaborations with universities, museums, institutions, and governments worldwide.

“Human-centered Artificial Intelligence should not be scary,” says Nicola Grandis, and we can only congratulate those who bring Artificial Intelligence Made in Italy to the world!

Read more stories of Italian start-ups and innovation