Thank you very much for your continued support of the multilingual service infrastructure “Language Grid.”
Since its launch in 2007, the Language Grid has operated as a platform supporting multilingual communication. We regret to inform you that the service will be discontinued one month from now (March 31st, 2026).
The Language Grid was originally launched and operated by the Department of Social Informatics at Kyoto University. In 2018, operational responsibility was transferred to the Language Grid Association, a non-profit organization (NPO), which has since continued to manage and develop the platform. Over nearly two decades, the Language Grid has served as an infrastructure supporting multilingual communication.
During this period, operational organizations were established in Bangkok, Jakarta, and Xinjiang. A total of 177 organizations from 23 countries joined the initiative. Through their collaboration, 225 language services were registered on the platform.
The history of the project, its design philosophy, system architecture, and social significance are summarized in the Wikipedia article “Language Grid.” We invite those who are interested to refer to it for further information.
The Language Grid was conceived following an intercultural collaboration experiment conducted in 2002. Through that experience, we recognized the importance of an Internet-based infrastructure that would enable users to freely combine diverse language services in order to support multilingual communication. Based on this vision, we undertook the design, development, and long-term operation of the platform.
With the breakthrough of neural network–based machine translation technologies, the usefulness of the Language Grid further increased. By integrating domain-specific dictionaries and user dictionaries with machine translation services, the platform enabled customized translation environments tailored to individual communities.
However, in recent years, the emergence of large language models (LLMs) has significantly transformed the landscape of language technologies. Translation styles and policies can now be flexibly specified through prompting, without the need to integrate diverse language resources. In light of this technological shift, we have concluded that the Language Grid has fulfilled its role and have therefore decided to conclude the service.
Looking ahead, we will move beyond the provision of translation functions alone. Our future efforts will focus on the research and development of “translation agents” that conduct translation through interactive dialogue, with the aim of reducing misunderstandings between speakers arising from cultural differences. Building upon the knowledge and experience cultivated through the Language Grid, we will continue exploring new approaches to supporting intercultural collaboration.
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all researchers, organizations, and users who have supported and participated in the Language Grid over the years.