Senior officials from Nepal and India have stressed the need to expand the historical, cultural and people-to-people ties between the two countries and now take cooperation forward in the digital domain. At an AI-related event organized by the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu on Friday, the officials also pledged to increase cooperation in areas such as Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Indian Ambassador Naveen Srivastava believes that collaboration in the digital domain is very natural for Nepal due to the society, culture, tradition and strong ties between India and Nepal. He said that a memorandum of understanding (MoU) can be signed at the government level to allow governments and institutions to collaborate in the broader domain of digital cooperation.

‘AI models that have been successful in India can be used in developing countries, especially in Nepal, and India is looking to work with Nepal under the ‘Neighborhood First’ policy,’ he said. ‘India has been trying to create a platform for collaboration between Nepal and India for the last three years.’ He claims that the number of Indian tourists has increased after India’s Unified Payment Interface (UPI) was made available in Nepal. 

In the context of India’s progress in DPI, Ambassador Srivastava informed that work is being done on some experimental platforms, such as developing an AI model for Nepali language, with Kathmandu University. If they are successful, he said that collaboration can be expanded to other universities in Nepal. He said that the India-Nepal Startup Partnership Network (IN-SPAN) was recently launched to support Nepali startups and that 250 applications have been received for an eight-week course at the IIT Madras incubator. He also said that it was a challenge for them to select 25 startups from this. 

Minister for Communications and Information Technology Jagdish Kharel called for Nepal to deepen cooperation in research, skill development and knowledge exchange with international partners, especially India. He mentioned that Nepal's national vision on AI is clear and principled. He said that Nepal is committed to ensuring that AI technology is ethical, safe and beneficial for all.

'But all this cannot be done by the government alone, a comprehensive national initiative and international partnership are required,' he said, 'The deep friendship between Nepal and India can become a strong foundation for this collaboration.' He emphasized that collaboration is necessary to make the AI ​​revolution a story of shared progress and prosperity for the entire region. 

Chief Executive Officer of Digital India Bhasini Division Amitabh Nag, who came to Nepal for the program, explained that Bhasini's work is focused on removing language barriers and reducing the digital divide. Bhasini is an initiative under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology that is working on creating AI models of languages ​​spoken in India.

Currently, AI models have been created for 22 languages ​​and are working on a total of more than 36 languages, said Nag, the head of Bhasini. Since Nepali is one of the 22 languages ​​mentioned in the Constitution of India, he said that the Nepali dataset and AI model have also been made available as 'open source' on the platform. 

'You can easily download it. You can try to improve it yourself,' said Nag, 'Bhasini's system is a voice for multilingual system. It can be further strengthened by the two countries.’ Giving an example of the use of Bhasini in India, he mentioned that the audio of the panchayat meeting at the rural level was automatically transcribed and converted into minutes of the meeting, and this has enabled 270,000 panchayats to hold meetings in their own language. 

Anirban Sharma, Director of the Observer Research Foundation, mentioned that cooperation between developing countries is essential for the development and global use of AI. He believes that the approach (method) of building digital public infrastructure in India has been successful to a large extent and that a similar method should be applied to AI development as well. 

In a discussion on how AI can be used for Nepal’s development, Shiksh Bhatt, founder of various startups like Tootle, pointed out that it is necessary to build digital public infrastructure as a basic structure to reap the benefits of AI. ‘When we talk about AI, we are dreaming of flying fighter jets instead of building airports,’ he said. He said that expanding DPI could reduce the challenges faced by startups and provide users with a variety of services and facilities through instant payments and a national identity card system. 

Bikash Gurung, President of the Robotics Association of Nepal, said that the organization is working to empower youth and bring the latest technology to Nepal's ecosystem and is currently focusing on 'Physical AI'. Aadesh Khadka, Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Communications, said that the AI ​​Policy was issued just a few months ago and a National AI Center has been established.