SG Translate 2.0 Media Factsheet

SG Translate 2.0 is the next generation of SG Translate, the National Translation Committee’s machine translation initiative. Developed by MDDI and GovTech, SG Translate 2.0 is a Singapore-centric translation engine that combines large language models (LLM) and neural machine translation (NMT) to produce first-cut translations that better reflect Singapore’s official terminology, local expressions and cultural context. Drawing on MDDI’s translation resources and expertise, SG Translate 2.0 goes beyond translating words accurately to capturing meaning, intent and context in ways that resonate with Singaporeans.

What sets SG Translate 2.0 apart is its rich foundation of Singapore-specific language assets. These include over 7,000 official Government terms in the Government Terms Translated (GTT) database, and translations from past Government communication materials. Public officers, translation practitioners and Citizen Translators (CTs) have also contributed feedback to refine SG Translate 2.0’s translation output, helping to ensure it stays relevant to Singapore's multicultural and multilingual context.

Early testing results have been encouraging:

SG Translate 2.0 delivered four times the performance of a general-purpose large language model in handling Singapore-specific terms and local context.

In pilot user trials involving 177 Citizen Translators, where outputs were compared against human translations, SG Translate 2.0 was preferred in nearly half of all comparisons across criteria such as accuracy, local context, grammar and style, a notable result for an AI translation tool.

These results highlight the potential of Singapore-centric AI translation while reinforcing the continued importance of human oversight for higher-risk or nuance-sensitive content.