The Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD), Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), has signed an MoU with Kathmandu University’s Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure and Artificial Intelligence (DPI-AI), Nepal, to collaborate on multilingual AI and Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).
The partnership will focus on developing Nepali language datasets, speech corpora, and AI resources for Speech-to-Text, Text-to-Speech, Machine Translation, and multilingual conversational AI applications. Leveraging BHASHINI’s open and interoperable language technology ecosystem, the initiative aims to support multilingual digital service delivery in Nepal and reduce language and literacy barriers in accessing public services.
The two institutions will also undertake joint research, pilot projects, training programmes, and capacity-building initiatives in Natural Language Processing (NLP), multilingual AI, and Digital Public Infrastructure.
A key component of the collaboration is the digitization and preservation of low-resource and underrepresented languages in the India-Nepal region through the creation of language datasets and AI tools.
BHASHINI, India's national platform for AI-driven multilingual digital inclusion, currently supports 36 Indian text languages, 23 Indian voice languages, and 35 international languages. The platform powers over 800 government websites and processes more than 15 million AI inferences daily.
The partnership marks a step towards expanding multilingual AI capabilities and strengthening cross-border cooperation in language technologies and digital public infrastructure.
