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National Roadmap

Bangladesh AI Roadmap 2026–2033

Four phases. Named institutions. Measurable milestones. From 47.12 to 70+ — in seven years.

100 Days·April – July 2026 Year 1·April 2026 – March 2027 3 Years·2026–2029 7 Years·2026–2033

Published: March 2026 · Updated as new policy developments emerge

Phase 1April – July 2026

100 Days— April – July 2026

Foundation-setting actions that require no legislation and minimal budget — only political will.

6 milestones

Establish National AI Standards Board (NAISB)

ICT Division + BUET + DU + CUET

Cabinet order; 7-member board; meets monthly; mandate to publish BNAS v1.0 by December 2026.

Board constituted and operational

Issue Government AI Procurement Rules (GAPR)

Finance Division

Finance Division circular requiring bias audits, explainability standards, and Bangla language support for all government AI contracts above Tk 1 crore.

Circular issued; all pending AI tenders updated to comply

Launch Bangladesh AI Research Institute (BAIRI) Task Force

ICT Division + BUET + DU

Task force to design BAIRI governance structure, budget model, and facility plan. 10 members; 60-day report deadline.

Task force convened; report submitted within 60 days

Begin Bangla Dataset Commons Corpus Collection

ICT Division + BARC + National Archives

MoUs with Prothom Alo, Daily Star, Bangladesh Television, and National Archives for data licensing. Begin 50B-token corpus project.

5 MoUs signed; corpus collection pipeline operational

Sign UNESCO AI Ethics Recommendation Action Plan

Ministry of Foreign Affairs + ICT Division

Bangladesh to publish national action plan implementing UNESCO 2021 AI Ethics Recommendation — no legislation required.

National action plan published; submitted to UNESCO

NBR Tax Compliance AI Pilot (Phase 1)

National Board of Revenue + ICT Division

AI anomaly detection on top 100,000 corporate filers. No new infrastructure — run on existing NBR systems. Identify top 500 high-risk cases for review.

500 high-risk cases flagged; 50 escalated to investigation

Phase 2April 2026 – March 2027

Year 1— April 2026 – March 2027

First-year institution-building and priority AI deployments in government services.

7 milestones

Establish Bangladesh AI Research Institute (BAIRI)

ICT Division + BUET + DU — Tk 50 crore (Year 1)

Formal establishment by Act or Executive Order. Hire Executive Director. Open first 30 PhD fellowships. Acquire initial 50 GPUs for pilot compute.

BAIRI operational; Executive Director appointed; 30 PhD fellowships awarded

MoHFW Disease Surveillance AI — Nationwide

Ministry of Health + IEDCR + DGDA

AI-powered outbreak early warning system across all 64 districts using DHIS2 data. Dengue, cholera, respiratory illness clusters detected 2–3 weeks earlier than current system.

System operational in 64 districts; 7-day detection target achieved for 2 outbreaks

Draft National AI Act — Parliamentary Submission

Law Ministry + ICT Division + NAISB

Risk-based AI Act drafted with multi-stakeholder consultation (civil society, industry, academia, judiciary). Parliamentary submission by Q4 2026.

Draft completed; public consultation held; submitted to Parliament

Bangladesh National AI Standards v1.0 Published

NAISB

Minimum standards for government AI deployments. Alignment with ISO/IEC 42001. Mandatory for all government AI procurement from January 2027.

BNAS v1.0 published; mandatory compliance date announced

MoA Crop Yield AI Advisory — 8 Divisions Pilot

Ministry of Agriculture + DAE + BMD

Satellite + weather + soil AI crop yield prediction for 8 divisions. Farmers receive SMS advisory. DAE extension officers use AI-generated district reports.

8 divisions covered; 500,000 farmers receiving AI advisory by SMS

Land Record Fraud Detection AI — 10 Districts

Ministry of Land + ACC + ICT Division

ML-powered land mutation anomaly detection in 10 pilot districts. Flag suspicious transactions for ACC review. Reduce land fraud backlog.

200 suspicious mutations flagged; 30 prosecutions initiated

IT Sector Emergency Reskilling — Cohort 1

BASIS + ICT Division + NAISA

10,000 IT workers reskilled in AI-adjacent roles (prompt engineering, AI QA, training data work). 6-month intensive; online and Dhaka campus delivery.

10,000 workers certified; 70%+ employed in AI-adjacent roles within 6 months

Phase 32026–2029

3 Years— 2026–2029

Full regulatory architecture operational; sovereign AI infrastructure under construction; government AI in 20+ services.

7 milestones

Bangladesh National AI Authority (BNAIA) Operational

Parliament — National AI Act

Independent regulator with 50 technical staff. Licensing high-risk AI systems. Citizens' complaint mechanism. First annual State of AI report published.

BNAIA board appointed; 50 staff hired; first 20 high-risk AI audits completed

National AI Compute Cloud — Phase 1 (1,000 GPUs)

ICT Division + BAIRI — Tk 800 crore

1,000 H100-equivalent GPUs operational at BAIRI facility. Available to universities, startups, and government ministries at subsidised rates. Powers BanglaBERT 2.0 and BanglaSTT training.

1,000 GPUs operational; 50 organisations using National AI Cloud

BanglaBERT 2.0 and BanglaOCR Released

BAIRI

Open-source Bangla language model trained on 50B tokens. BanglaOCR at 98%+ accuracy for printed text. Freely available to all developers. West Bengal collaboration on training data.

Models released; 500+ developers using within 6 months; 95%+ benchmark scores

AI in 20 Government Services — All Ministries

National AI Commission + All ministries

At least one AI application operational in each of Bangladesh's 20 key ministries. 20M+ citizen interactions per year processed with AI assistance.

20 ministry AI deployments; 20M annual AI-assisted citizen interactions

RMG Reskilling — 100,000 Workers

BGMEA + MoLE + NAISA

100,000 RMG workers reskilled in AI quality control, sustainable manufacturing compliance, and garment tech. Factory-floor delivery during shift changes.

100,000 workers certified; 80%+ retained in upgraded roles at same or higher wage

Bangladesh AI Score: 55+ (Oxford Insights)

All pillars contributing

From 47.12 to 55+ by addressing Technology Pillar (target: 40+) through BAIRI publications, compute infrastructure, and Bangla NLP tools.

Oxford Insights score 55+; Technology Pillar 40+ (from 26.26)

Procurement Transparency AI — All Federal Tenders

CPTU + Finance Division + ACC

AI bid-rigging detection, specification analysis, and vendor network mapping integrated with eProcurement for all federal government tenders above Tk 1 crore.

System monitoring Tk 1,00,000 crore+ annual procurement; 200+ cases flagged for investigation annually

Phase 42026–2033

7 Years— 2026–2033

Bangladesh established as South Asia's leading AI hub outside India — with sovereign infrastructure, world-class research, and AI touching every citizen.

7 milestones

Oxford Insights AI Readiness Score: 70+

Aggregate of all 12 Strategy Pillars

Technology Pillar: 60+ (from 26.26). Government Pillar: 75+. Data Pillar: 70+. Bangladesh enters the top 50 of 188 countries for the first time.

Score 70+; Top 50 globally; Technology Pillar 60+

BAIRI: 200+ Publications in Top AI Venues

Bangladesh AI Research Institute

BAIRI publishing at NeurIPS, ICML, ACL, EMNLP, and ICLR. 500 PhD graduates. Bangladesh recognised as a credible AI research nation.

200+ publications/year in top-20 venues; 500 PhD alumni; 3 internationally cited Bangladesh AI researchers

Sovereign AI Compute Cloud — 5,000 GPUs

ICT Division + BAIRI

5,000 GPU cluster — sufficient for training mid-size foundation models. Bangladesh no longer dependent on foreign compute for research. Open to SAARC nations on commercial terms.

5,000 GPUs operational; revenue-positive cloud operation; 200 organisations using

Sovereign Bangla AI Stack — Full Suite Complete

BAIRI

BanglaBERT 2.0, BanglaSTT, BanglaTTS, BanglaOCR, BanglaGPT all released and maintained. 230 million Bangla speakers globally benefit. Bangla is a first-class AI language.

All 5 components released; 95%+ benchmark performance; adopted by Indian West Bengal for government services

ICT Exports Including AI: $5B+

ICT Division + BASIS + MoC

From $1.4B (2025) to $5B+. AI-specific exports: $500M+. Bangladesh AI products exported to Myanmar, Nepal, Cambodia, sub-Saharan Africa.

$5B ICT exports; $500M AI-specific; 10+ Bangladesh AI product exports in foreign markets

AI-Augmented Government — 100 Deployments

National AI Commission + All Ministries

100 operational government AI deployments. 50M+ annual citizen interactions with AI-assisted government services. All in Bangla. All human-reviewable. All independently audited by BNAIA.

100 deployments; 50M annual AI interactions; citizen satisfaction 80%+

500 Revenue-Generating AI Startups

Bangladesh AI Fund + ICT Division

Bangladesh AI Fund has invested in 500+ AI startups. 50 have crossed Tk 10 crore annual revenue. 5 have raised international venture funding. Bangladesh has its first AI unicorn candidate.

500 AI startups; 50 at Tk 10 crore+ revenue; 5 with international funding

AI Readiness Score Trajectory

2024

47.12

Baseline

2027

55+

100-Day + Year 1

2029

62+

3-Year Target

2033

70+

7-Year Vision

প্রতিটি পর্যায়ের মাইলফলক পরিমাপযোগ্য, যাচাইযোগ্য, এবং জবাবদিহিযোগ্য। জাতীয় এআই কমিশন বার্ষিক অগ্রগতি প্রতিবেদন প্রকাশ করবে। Oxford Insights স্কোর প্রতি বছর যাচাই করা হবে।

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