About Bhala
Language Matters
Africa is home to over 2,000 languages — yet most have no NLP support. We're building world-class language technology for 350M+ speakers who deserve the same tools English speakers take for granted.
Reducing the digital gap
Africa is home to over 2,000 languages, yet the vast majority of NLP research and tools are built for English and a handful of other high-resource languages. Over 350 million speakers of African languages have been left behind.
Bhala AI is changing that. We build language models, APIs, and tools that actually understand African languages — not English-first models with African languages bolted on. Our proprietary models are purpose-built to deliver accurate results where general-purpose tools fall short.
We currently support 22 major African languages across Southern, Eastern, and Central Africa — with more on the way.
What we believe
Languages are not interchangeable
You can't just fine-tune an English model and expect it to work for IsiZulu. African languages need models built from the ground up with their grammar and structure in mind.
Language is a human right
Access to your language is a cultural right. The Bhala Keyboard puts advanced NLP directly in people's hands — offline, free, and accessible to everyone, not just businesses.
Africa's NLP moment is now
With growing smartphone adoption, digital government services, and regulatory requirements for local languages, the demand for Bantu NLP has never been higher.
Built by experts in African NLP
Bhala is built by researchers and engineers with deep expertise in African language processing, computational linguistics, and AI ethics. Our team brings together African NLP research with production-grade engineering.
Our work is grounded in the Ubuntu philosophy of AI ethics — the principle that technology should serve the collective well-being of communities. This shapes everything from how we collect and handle language data to how we design models that respect the cultural context of the languages they serve.
We don't just adapt English-first models. We build from the ground up with an understanding of what makes Bantu languages unique — and we hold ourselves to the highest standards of responsible AI development.
Ubuntu AI Ethics Framework
Our approach to AI safety and ethics is rooted in Ubuntu philosophy — ensuring our technology upholds communal values, linguistic dignity, and equitable access for all speakers.
Proprietary NLP models
Novel tokenization, translation, and embedding techniques purpose-built for African languages — every model is designed for the unique grammar and structure of these languages.
Top-class benchmarks
We're building comprehensive benchmarks for Bantu language NLP — setting the standard for how African language models should be evaluated. Coming soon.
22 languages across 16 countries
Covering approximately 171 million L1 speakers and 350M+ total speakers across Southern, Eastern, and Central Africa.
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Write your future with us
Join us in building the NLP infrastructure Africa deserves.