Welsh language AI gets government backing
The Welsh Government has signed a partnership with Cosine, a sovereign AI company, to improve how artificial intelligence processes and understands Welsh. The agreement will see the government provide data, resources and expertise to strengthen Cosine's Lumen AI model.
The work targets a practical problem: AI systems trained primarily on English often handle minority languages poorly. Welsh, spoken by roughly 900,000 people, needs dedicated training data and linguistic input to function reliably in everyday digital tools.
What the partnership covers
Cosine will receive Welsh Government data and expertise to improve Lumen's Welsh-language capabilities. The company's CEO, Alistair Pullen, said the collaboration helps build Lumen "on a stronger foundation, with better representation of the languages and public context that matter across the UK."
The Cabinet Minister for Education and the Welsh Language, Anna Brychan, said the language "belongs to us all" and that Welsh must be "fully represented in the technologies people use to access information, learn, work and communicate."
Bilingual AI as a policy priority
The partnership supports the Welsh Government's aim to keep Welsh viable in digital spaces. It also reflects a broader push to ensure new technologies recognise and support bilingual use, matching how multilingual communities worldwide interact with AI tools daily.
The Cabinet Minister for Enterprise, Connectivity and Energy, Adam Price, said working with sovereign AI companies like Cosine helps build "the skills, knowledge and capability Wales needs" while supporting innovation aligned with national priorities.
Why this matters for government professionals
For public sector teams, the announcement signals that language capability is becoming a procurement and policy consideration in AI adoption. Departments serving Welsh-speaking communities will need tools that work equally well in both languages, not English-first systems with Welsh bolted on.
Professionals working on digital service delivery, citizen engagement, or data strategy should watch how this partnership shapes Welsh-language AI benchmarks. The same principles apply to any government working with minority or regional languages - translation and multilingual processing are core requirements for inclusive public services, and AI for Government training increasingly covers these practical use cases.
Your membership also unlocks:
