India, Nepal Deepen Language AI Collaboration at Bhashini Sangam Workshop

The government's Digital India Bhashini Division (DIBD) co-organised a Bhashini Sangam international engagement workshop in Kathmandu that advanced co-creation, language preservation and inclusive Language AI across India and Nepal, an official statement said on Tuesday. The Digital India BHASHINI Division in collaboration with the Embassy of India, Kathmandu, and Kathmandu University organised the event that drew stakeholders to explore the potential of multilingual and voice-first Artificial Intelligence (AI) in enabling access to digital services, information and opportunities in preferred languages.

The workshop drew government, academia, technology, research and innovation ecosystems and strengthened India–Nepal collaboration in Language AI, building on the Memorandum of Understanding between DIBD and Kathmandu University for collaboration on language technology and digital public infrastructure. The engagement advanced partnership through the co-creation of technology, datasets and locally relevant applications that respond to the linguistic needs of communities across both countries.

The initiative focused on co-creating Language AI with countries and communities, bringing together technology and local knowledge to build solutions rooted in their linguistic and cultural contexts. “India and Nepal share languages, communities and a deep cultural connection, creating a unique opportunity to build Language AI together. Our aim is not just to make technology understand Nepali, Newari and Maithili, but to build with these languages, their communities and the people who speak them,” said Amitabh Nag, CEO, Digital India BHASHINI Division.

The BHASHINI team conducted live demonstrations of its multilingual AI capabilities, showcasing speech recognition, real-time translation, voice-enabled interaction and document processing, while highlighting how Language AI can make digital access more natural and inclusive. It also seeks to preserve languages and cultures in the digital age, ensuring that the voices, knowledge and identities carried by languages are represented in the technologies of tomorrow.

Through such engagements, Bhashini Sangam aims to turn shared linguistic and cultural connections into shared innovation, co-creation and stronger partnerships, advancing a more inclusive multilingual AI ecosystem across borders, the statement noted. The workshop also explored local applications in Nepali and other languages, bringing together Bhasini’s technology ecosystem and Kathmandu University’s academic and research capabilities to develop solutions relevant to communities in India and Nepal.

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