SRINAGAR: The National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar has launched a national-level Artificial Intelligence challenge aimed at developing machine translation technology for Kashmiri, seeking to bring the language into India’s rapidly expanding AI and Natural Language Processing ecosystem.
Named KATHE 2026: AI Challenge for Kashmiri Language Translation, the competition is being organised by Gaash Lab at NIT Srinagar in collaboration with the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), with the University of Kashmir as academic collaborator and GitHub as the primary sponsor.
The challenge focuses on developing English-to-Kashmiri machine translation models, with participants required to build, test and evaluate AI models on the Kaggle platform.
The organisers said the initiative is intended to address the under-representation of Kashmiri in modern AI systems and encourage students, researchers and technology enthusiasts across India to develop language technologies for one of the country’s low-resource languages.
The competition will provide participants with access to a dataset, evaluation framework and learning resources through Kaggle. Online submissions are currently open, with the deadline set for August 17, 2026.
The competition will culminate in an offline finale at NIT Srinagar on August 21, where shortlisted teams will demonstrate their AI models through live evaluation.
The finale will also feature expert lectures and interactive sessions on Artificial Intelligence, Natural Language Processing and language technology, with particular focus on the technical challenges involved in developing AI systems for low-resource languages such as Kashmiri.
The organisers said KATHE 2026 seeks to create a collaborative ecosystem bringing together academia, researchers and technology stakeholders, while demonstrating how AI can contribute both to technological advancement and the preservation of linguistic heritage.
The winning teams will be felicitated at the conclusion of the finale for their contributions to English-to-Kashmiri machine translation.
According to the organisers, the challenge will give participants hands-on experience in AI-driven language technologies while encouraging the development of more inclusive computational systems capable of representing India’s linguistic diversity.
The initiative is also expected to strengthen research and innovation in regional-language computing and create opportunities for Kashmiri to gain a stronger presence in the country’s evolving digital and artificial intelligence ecosystem.
