At 2025 Monlam Manifest, Centre Declares Melong Outperforms Global AI in Tibetan
By Tenzin Chokyi
DHARAMSALA, 4 Nov: Monlam Melong, a pioneering Tibetan‑language AI developed by the Monlam Tibetan IT Research Centre and accessible at Melong.ai, now surpasses existing large language models such as Gemini, Claude and DeepSeek in the Tibetan‑language generation and comprehension, the centre declared at the 2025 Monlam Manifest, Monlam’s annual flagship event.
In internal testing, the updated model reportedly answered about 1,500 questions on Tibetan history, literature and grammar, achieving a score of 73% and scored 71% on the CBSE Class 12 Tibetan exam, outperforming other AI models in both cases, said Tenzin Gayche, AI instructor at the Monlam IT centre, during the third Monlam Manifest 2025 held at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA) here on Monday.
The newly introduced “Monlam Think” feature, with a processing time of around 30 seconds, enables deeper analysis and provides more comprehensive responses compared to the standard Monlam Melong mode, which focuses on quicker, concise information. Both features appear on Monlam Melong’s query bar, allowing users to choose their preferred mode, with “Monlam Think” ranking first in the test, while the standard model placed third.
Since its launch last year, Monlam Melong has expanded dramatically, now drawing on roughly three times more input—about 24 billion tokens covering Tibetan history, literature, and grammar, equivalent to approximately 140,000 books of 500 pages each.
The updated model handles approximately 1,300,000 syllables compared with just 1,000 previously. “ Previously, Monlam Melong could only process a single paper at a time. Now, it can ingest an entire book for summarisation and analysis,” added Gayche.
The AI is also now multilingual and multimodal, supporting more than 140 languages and accepting both image and text input.
Monlam Melong is part of the Monlam IT team’s pioneering AI work, aimed not just at making Tibetan digitally accessible, but also at preserving the language and the knowledge it carries in a way that reflects Tibetan perspectives and understanding.
Building on this mission, the Monlam IT team has also developed several other initiatives to support Tibetan language and literature digitally. Monlam Bodyig-4 now features three additional fonts and improved typesetting, making tantric texts clearer and more accessible to readers. The Monlam Grand Dictionary serves as a comprehensive reference for Tibetan language learners and scholars, providing detailed explanations and usage examples.
Meanwhile, Monlam AI offers intelligent support for research, language learning, and text analysis, powered by machine-learning models for translation, OCR, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech. It enables users to engage with Tibetan content more efficiently and interactively and it now supports 9 languages, expanding its accessibility to a wider audience.
