  With 24 official EU and many additional languages, multilingualism in Europe
and an inclusive Digital Single Market can only be enabled through Language
Technologies (LTs). European LT business is dominated by hundreds of SMEs and a
few large players. Many are world-class, with technologies that outperform the
global players. However, European LT business is also fragmented, by nation
states, languages, verticals and sectors, significantly holding back its
impact. The European Language Grid (ELG) project addresses this fragmentation
by establishing the ELG as the primary platform for LT in Europe. The ELG is a
scalable cloud platform, providing, in an easy-to-integrate way, access to
hundreds of commercial and non-commercial LTs for all European languages,
including running tools and services as well as data sets and resources. Once
fully operational, it will enable the commercial and non-commercial European LT
community to deposit and upload their technologies and data sets into the ELG,
to deploy them through the grid, and to connect with other resources. The ELG
will boost the Multilingual Digital Single Market towards a thriving European
LT community, creating new jobs and opportunities. Furthermore, the ELG project
organises two open calls for up to 20 pilot projects. It also sets up 32
National Competence Centres (NCCs) and the European LT Council (LTC) for
outreach and coordination purposes.
