About EQUATE

EQUATE is a major research initiative at the University of Cambridge, focused on making language technologies more inclusive and accessible for all.

Language technologies, powered by Natural Language Processing (NLP), can now support vital areas of life—from communication and education to healthcare and public services. Yet access to these technologies is far from equal. Currently, they are available to only a small fraction of the world’s 7.9 billion people—mainly those living in the Global North. The majority of the world’s 7,000+ living languages lack the data, tools, and infrastructure needed for the development of language AI. This growing gap not only reinforces digital inequality, but also has serious socioeconomic consequences.

EQUATE tackles this challenge by:

Profiling global language readiness

EQUATE Index is a unique resource that assesses the availability of AI resources and digital infrastructure for a language and language community, as well as the socioeconomics of the region where the language is spoken.

Investigating the root causes of inequality

By analysing systemic barriers—such as limited institutional support, weak infrastructure, and data scarcity—we aim to uncover why many languages remain cut off from technological progress.

Designing new methods for multilingual NLP

Our team is creating next-generation techniques that address core challenges of equity—such as data efficiency, model compactness, cultural adaptation and fairness—and that can scale to support languages at different stages of digital readiness.