NIT Srinagar Launches AI Translation Challenge for Kashmiri

The National Institute of Technology Srinagar has launched *KATHE 2026: AI Challenge for Kashmiri Language Translation*, a nationwide competition aimed at leveraging artificial intelligence and natural language processing to preserve and advance Kashmiri, a significantly underrepresented language in modern AI systems.

Organized by Gaash Lab, NIT Srinagar, in collaboration with the Bureau of Indian Standards and the University of Kashmir, the initiative invites students, researchers, and technology enthusiasts to develop English-to-Kashmiri machine translation models. The competition will be hosted on Kaggle, where participants can access datasets, evaluation frameworks, and learning resources.

Online submissions are open until August 17, 2026, with an offline finale scheduled for August 21, 2026, at NIT Srinagar. The finale will feature live model evaluations, expert lectures on AI and NLP for low-resource languages, and recognition of winning teams.

The initiative represents a significant step toward creating inclusive language technologies that reflect India's linguistic diversity and integrating Kashmiri into the country's digital and AI ecosystem.