RIYADH: Asharq News, the 24/7 Arabic-language multiplatform news service owned by Arab News’ parent company Saudi Research and Media Group (SRMG), has partnered with the cloud-based platform Newsbridge.

The company will offer its signature multimodal indexing AI technology that leverages time-stamped metadata.

“Our partnership with Newsbridge provides our production teams with a fast and efficient means of searching and finding the shots they need, in English or Arabic. We look forward to leveraging AI-powered archiving technology to maximize multilingual search, accuracy, efficiency, and convenience,” said Kathey Battrick, senior manager, library and media management, at Asharq News.

The next-gen solution enables Asharq News to auto-index its archive via multimodal AI and scalable processing in the cloud. The technology will organize and merchandise media assets into collections, or smart folders, that automatically update when new media matches predefined criteria, future-proofing the news service’s archive collections in a structured manner.

“Asharq News’ track record as innovation leaders in the media sector makes our partnership all the more meaningful. By leveraging Newsbridge’s multimodal indexing AI technology, Asharq is setting a new standard to future-proof media asset management in the industry while also transforming end-user experience, offering next-gen search exploration and retrieval,” said Philippe Petitpont, CEO of Newsbridge.

Newsbridge’s AI-powered next-gen cloud platform is aimed at revolutionizing the user experience of managing and working with critical amounts of media assets, providing unprecedented access to content. The complete solution consists of media asset collections, multimodal indexing AI, cloud video tools, and the recently launched content monetization showcase and resale portal.

By taking into account facial, object and scene recognition with audio transcription and semantic context, the solution enables smart media asset management, be it media logging, archiving, or investigative research.

Asharq News is integrating Newsbridge’s AI archiving technology into its advanced digital infrastructure, which is unparalleled in the region in terms of studio equipment, broadcast technology, asset management and Internet connectivity.

Asharq’s cutting-edge features include a chroma key green screen, a Barco 2 LED screen, a fully virtual studio, as well as cameras that can be steered remotely from the control room, robotic cameras, a four-screen mobile video wall, an LDL screen that can run augmented reality, Pebble playout technology, LiveU file-sharing system and Megaphone TV viewer engagement platform.