IIT Madras launches Nilekani Centre at AI4Bharat

Context

IIT Madras launched the ‘Nilekani Centre at AI4Bharat’ to promote the state of Indian language technology with the intention to create a societal impact.

Key-points

• It is an initiative to build open-source language AI for Indian languages.
• The idea is to energise the ecosystem to do more for Indian languages, all the researched data will be available for start-ups and other industries working on Indian language technology.
• This data, which can be accessed from the official website — iitm.ac.in— would include datasets, tools, and pre-trained models being developed at the Centre.

About Bhasini [BHASHaINterface for India]

• It is India’s AI led language translation platform.
• It is a part of the National Language Translation Mission.
• It will make Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) resources available to MSMEs, Startups and Individual Innovators in the public domain.  
• It is interoperable and will catalyse the entire Digital Ecosystem. 
• It is a giant step to realise the goal of Digital Government.
• It will create and nurture an ecosystem involving Central/State government agencies and start-ups, working together to develop and deploy innovative products and services in Indian languages.

Objectives

• It aims to increase the content in Indian languages on the Internet substantially in the domains of public interest, particularly, governance-and-policy, science & technology, etc. , thus will encourage citizens to use the Internet in their own language.
• It aims to build a National Public Digital Platform for languages to develop services and products for citizens by leveraging the power of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies.

Significance

• Transcend digital barriers
• Digital inclusion and empowerment
• Realize the goal of AatmaNirbhar Bharat