India-Nepal Sign MoU to develop AI-powered Multilingual Language Platform

8 Jun 2026

India and Nepal signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to strengthen cooperation in artificial intelligence (AI), Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), and language technologies between India’s BHASHINI Division and Kathmandu University’s DPI-AI Centre.

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About Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) refers to foundational digital systems that enable secure, interoperable, and inclusive delivery of public and private services. It forms the digital backbone of governance and the economy.
India’s DPI model includes platforms like Aadhaar for digital identity, Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for payments, and DigiLocker for digital document sharing.
Key features of DPI include interoperability, scalability, low-cost access, inclusion, and consent-based data sharing, helping improve welfare delivery, financial inclusion, and ease of living.
DPI has strengthened Direct Benefit Transfers (DBT), digital payments, e-governance, and startup innovation, while also raising concerns regarding privacy, cybersecurity, and the digital divide.

Core Pillars of the Collaboration

The partnership moves beyond a simple technology exchange to establish an inclusive ecosystem powered by Language AI. Its core focus areas include:

Targeted Dataset R&D: Jointly creating high-quality Nepali language datasets, speech corpora, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text-to-Speech (TTS) systems, and machine translation tools.
Halting “Digital Extinction”: Digitizing and preserving the linguistic and literary heritage of low-resource and underrepresented languages across the trans-boundary India-Nepal region.
Last-Mile Service Delivery: Using BHASHINI’s open and interoperable model to help the Government of Nepal expand its digital public services, directly bypassing traditional literacy and digital access barriers.
Human Capital Synergy: Setting up joint research projects, capacity-building programs, and training initiatives in Natural Language Processing (NLP) that unite tech practitioners and universities from both nations.

About Project BHASHINI (BHASHa INterface for India)

The Mission: It is India’s national AI-led initiative designed to break language barriers and ensure multilingual digital inclusion.
Technical Scale: The engine currently supports 36 text languages, 23 voice languages, and 35 international languages.
Governance Footprint: Managed via the National Hub for Language Technology, it powers more than 800 government websites and successfully processes over 15 million AI inferences every single day.

About Digital India BHASHINI Division (DIBD)

The Institutional Setup: DIBD is a specialized division under the Digital India Corporation (DIC), which functions under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India.
Ecosystem Driver: It anchors open-source innovation, dataset creation, and startup enablement, making India’s foundational tech infrastructure accessible to external partners.
Global South Vision: It acts as the primary vehicle for exporting India’s open-source tech models to international markets to promote regional digital equity.

Significance of this Collaboration

The Shift to DPI Diplomacy: This project highlights a strategic evolution in India’s Neighborhood First Policy.
- By sharing its non-proprietary tech models, India presents a cooperative, sovereign digital alternative in South Asia, strengthening regional leadership.
- Non-proprietary technology models refer to technologies, software, standards, or systems that are open, publicly accessible, and not controlled exclusively by a single company or entity.
  - Their design, source code, or operational standards are usually shared openly, allowing others to use, modify, improve, and distribute them.
  - These models promote collaboration, transparency, affordability, and innovation.
Socio-Economic Empowerment: A “voice-first” ecosystem allows citizens with low literacy or limited tech-savviness to access vital services like digital commerce, banking, e-governance, and online education.
Deepening People-to-People Connections: By targeting underrepresented border dialects (like Maithili or Bhojpuri), the project uses soft power to preserve a shared civilizational and cultural heritage.

Challenges that need to be Addressed

Data Scarcity: Many local languages lack structured digital texts or recordings, making it difficult to train highly accurate Machine Learning models.
Infrastructure Gaps: Deploying complex AI solutions at the last mile requires consistent electricity and high-speed internet, both of which face topographical bottlenecks in Nepal’s rugged terrain.
Data Governance: Both nations will need to synchronize their legal frameworks regarding data privacy, sovereignty, and secure storage for cross-border speech data.

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Way Forward

Scaling DPI Diplomacy: India should use this agreement as a working model to extend interoperable digital platforms to other South Asian neighbors like Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka.
Deploying Ground-Level Pilots: The immediate focus must shift toward running targeted pilot projects in high-impact rural sectors such as agriculture, local banking, and emergency disaster management.
Fostering Academic & Startup Hubs: Both nations need to co-develop incubation ecosystems that allow tech startups and researchers to build localized commercial apps on top of this open infrastructure.
Harmonizing Data Standards: Setting up a joint bilateral task force to quickly resolve cross-border data security and privacy regulations will ensure safe, long-term deployment.