Opening Address by SMS Tan Kiat How at the National Translation Committee (NTC) Conference 2026: Reimagining Translation In The Age Of AI

Distinguished guests, esteemed speakers, and members of our translation community,

Good morning, 大家早上好, selamat pagi, vanakkam.

Two years ago, when I spoke at this conference, I shared how NTC’s work could be anchored on three pillars: Technology, Talent and Community.

In just two years, AI has changed translation dramatically.

Today, almost anyone can put a sentence into an AI tool and get a translation in seconds.

This opens up tremendous possibilities. But it also raises fundamental questions.

What does good translation mean when machines can generate translations almost instantly?

What happens to the role of translation professionals?

And how do we ensure that technology strengthens, rather than weakens, our multilingual identity?

And for Singapore, these answers matter.

We are a multilingual society. Our languages connect us to our cultures, our heritage and one another as fellow Singaporeans.

So our ambition cannot simply be to translate more words, more quickly.

It must be to use technology to help people understand one another better.

And that requires us to reimagine our three pillars of Technology, Talent and Community.

Technology – Can AI understand Singapore?

Today, the Government manages at least 230,000 public-facing webpages. Yet not all are available in all four official languages.

For Singaporeans who are more comfortable reading in Chinese, Malay or Tamil, language should not be a barrier to accessing important Government information. And when that information comes from the Government, it is important that the translation is not only timely, but also accurate, consistent and trustworthy.

Content that was previously too costly or time-consuming to translate can increasingly be made available in multiple languages at scale.

AI can understand language. But can it understand Singapore?

Ask a general-purpose AI model to translate 火锅 into English, and it may give you “hotpot”.

But many Singaporeans would simply say this is “steamboat”.