Prime Minister Modi Unveils India’s AI-Powered Language Platform ‘Bhashini’ at SCO, Expresses Delight in Sharing It

The potential of artificial intelligence is now widely recognized, with both businesses and governments acknowledging its capabilities. In 2022, the Indian government introduced Bhashini, an AI-powered language platform that enables real-time translation and facilitates communication between individuals speaking different languages on digital platforms. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed his willingness to share this technology with other member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Modi, in his address at the SCO virtual summit, said, “India supports proposals for reforms and modernization of the SCO. We are happy to share India’s AI-based Bhashin language platform with everyone to remove language barriers within the SCO. This can serve as an example of digital technology for inclusive growth.”

PM Modi unveils AI platform Bhashin at SCO

The SCO was established in 2001, and its founding members were Russia, China, the Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Later, in 2017, India and Pakistan became permanent members of the organization. On Tuesday, Iran also received permanent membership in the SCO.

Despite being a multinational organization, the official languages of the SCO are currently Mandarin and Russian. India has proposed adding English as an official language of the group.

Prime Minister Modi highlighted the organization’s language barriers and called it a significant step in building inclusive growth. Introducing Bhashin to SCO, he said, “To solve language woes, we are happy to introduce an AI-based language platform, Bhashin. to everyone”.

What is Bhashini, a language platform for artificial intelligence

In 2022, Prime Minister Modi launched Bhashin under the National Language Technology Mission (NLTM). The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) defended the project. It was introduced to provide a technology-based solution to digital language barriers. The platform leverages technologies such as AI/ML and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to develop and share open source models, tools and solutions (products and services) for Indian languages. The goal was to bring the nation’s non-English-speaking population onto the global Internet and help them access it in their own language.

The need for an AI-based language translation system was identified as one of the key tasks of the Prime Minister’s Advisory Council on Science, Technology and Innovation (PM-STIAC).