How India's Bhashini Platform Is Making AI Accessible for Everyone

India's Bhashini platform is being hailed as a key example of how to build inclusive AI. The UNDP's digital head says it's a foundational public good that lets AI reach people in their own languages. She argues similar public digital systems are needed worldwide to ensure AI safety and accessibility. India's work positions it as a leader in shaping inclusive global AI governance.

Key Points: UNDP's Keyzom Massally Praises India Bhashini AI Platform

  • Bhashini platform provides public datasets and models enabling services in multiple Indian languages
  • UNDP's AI Sprint initiative spans over 60 countries to develop national AI strategies
  • Massally calls for global public digital rails to make AI safer and more inclusive
  • India is convening 25 Global South nations in dialogues ahead of the AI Impact Summit
3 min read

Bhashini platform is a key example of how digital public infrastructure can transform AI accessibility: Keyzom Massally of UNDP

UNDP digital head Keyzom Massally highlights India's Bhashini as a global model for inclusive AI, enabling services in local languages and broadening digital participation.

"This linguistic empowerment is not just a technological achievement but a foundational digital public good that broadens participation and ensures AI reaches citizens in their own languages. - Keyzom Massally, UNDP"

New Delhi, December 10

India's remarkable progress with the AI for Bharat initiative, closely linked with the government-backed Bhashini platform, has emerged as a key example of how digital public infrastructure can transform AI accessibility, said Keyzom Massally, Head of Digital & AI Programmes at UNDP on Wednesday.

Speaking to ANI on the sidelines of the Carnegie Global Technology Summit 2025, Keyzom Massally said, "Today, major technology players such as Google and Paytm are already offering services in multiple Indic languages, a shift enabled by these public datasets, language models and open digital rails."

"Such similar public rails need to emerge across the world because that is going to make AI more inclusive and certainly for us to make AI more safer, because we can build-in the right safety tooling, the right benchmarks and so on into these public rails," she said.

"This linguistic empowerment is not just a technological achievement but a foundational digital public good that broadens participation and ensures AI reaches citizens in their own languages," she highlighted.

She also talked about the need for collaboration to scale saying, "We've heard from countries in Africa, in Latin America, Bhutan in the neighbourhood, among others. Majorly, the responses focus on the need to create more collaborations."

"Collaborations that is not just one meeting, but collaborations that's a network. Only in a network we can create access and affordability of compute," she added.

Massally highlighted UNDP's ongoing "AI Sprint," an initiative spanning more than 60 countries to support governments in developing AI strategies, digitizing local languages, and strengthening trust and safety mechanisms. She noted a growing demand from governments for executive boot camps to help cabinet leaders understand how to right-size investments in data infrastructure and avoid one-size-fits-all "hyperscale" models.

She also drew attention to sustainability and resource strategy, urging countries to explore powering data centers through renewable energy and responsibly leveraging critical mineral resources that underpin global AI infrastructure.

India, which is championing the AI Impact Summit, is already convening voices from 25 Global South nations in pre-summit dialogues.

According to Massally, India's ability to pilot scalable, human-centric, and safe AI experiments positions it as a key leader in shaping inclusive AI governance.

Carnegie India will host the Global Technology Summit (GTS), an innovation dialogue on December 11 in New Delhi as an official pre-summit event for the upcoming AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled to be held in New Delhi from February 15-20, 2026.

- ANI

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Reader Comments

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Sarah B
Interesting perspective from the UNDP. The point about avoiding "one-size-fits-all" hyperscale models is crucial. Different countries have different needs and capacities. India's approach of building public digital infrastructure seems to be a model worth studying.
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Vikram M
While the intent is good, I hope the execution is transparent. Who controls these "public rails"? We need to ensure the data used for these language models is collected ethically and doesn't end up in the hands of a few big corporations. A good step, but caution is needed.
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Priya S
Jai Hind! Seeing India lead the conversation for the Global South is so inspiring. We have the talent and the need. If we can get AI to work in Tamil, Telugu, or Bengali as well as it does in English, it will change millions of lives. More power to the team behind this!
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Rohit P
The sustainability angle is key. We can't build the future of AI on dirty energy. If India can pioneer green data centers powered by solar, it's a win-win for tech and the environment. Hope this gets serious focus at the summit.
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Kavya N
Collaboration with Africa and Latin America is the way to go. We have similar challenges. Sharing our DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) blueprint can help other nations leapfrog. This is how India should use its tech prowess - for global good, not just profit.

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