Srinagar, Aug 08: The National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar has announced KATHE 2026: AI Challenge for Kashmiri Language Translation, a national-level competition that aims to harness Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) for the preservation and advancement of the Kashmiri language. Online submissions for the competition are now open on Kaggle, where participants can register, access the competition dataset, evaluation framework and other learning resources before submitting their machine translation models. The competition will conclude with an offline finale on August 21, 2026, at NIT Srinagar, where shortlisted teams will demonstrate their AI models during a live evaluation. KATHE 2026 is a significant AI initiative focused on the Kashmiri language. It will give participants hands-on experience with AI-driven language technologies and strengthen research and innovation in regional language computing.