Customers can now use Amazon Translate, a neural machine translation service, in the AWS GovCloud (US) Region

For AWS government customers and organizations in government-regulated industries it is critical to communicate with people in their preferred languages. CSA Research shows that 51 percent of consumers prefer content in their own language, even if the language quality is less than perfect.

To help our government customers and organizations in government-regulated industries, we are making Amazon Translate available in the AWS GovCloud (US) Region, Amazon’s isolated cloud region built for sensitive data and regulated workloads. Powered by advanced deep-learning, Amazon Translate is a service that delivers fast, high-quality, and affordable neural machine-based language translations. Let’s take a look at some features and use cases.

Amazon Translate uses deep learning techniques to produce more accurate translation than statistical translation models with low-latency. That makes the service ideal for use cases that call for real-time and on-demand translation of user-generated content. For example,  government agencies can provide  live chat support to citizens with Limited English Proficiency (LEP).

Amazon Translate also enables language-independent processing, such as translating social media feeds into English for further data analysis across multiple languages. For example, public sector organizations can use the service to review feedback as citizens, volunteers, and students engage on social media. To see how to do this in detail, take a look at the blog Listen to Citizen and Student Sentiment with Machine Learning.

Amazon Translate can also be used to save cost and time for professional human translators when they are translating policy and other official documents. We have been partnering with a number of Language Service Providers (LSPs) to offer end-to-end translation services using Amazon Translate to produce a high-quality draft translation quickly. This translation is then edited by professional linguists for a guaranteed human quality result.

How can you get started with Amazon Translate?

If you are a first-time user, we recommend that you read the following sections of the Amazon Translate documentation:

1. How it Works – Introduces Amazon Translate
2. Getting Started with Amazon Translate – Explains how to set up your AWS account and test Amazon Translate.
3. Examples – Provides code examples in Java and Python. Use them to explore how Amazon Translate works.
4. API Reference – Contains reference documentation for Amazon Translate operations.

To access the AWS GovCloud (US) Region, you must use credentials that were created for that Region. The AWS Management Console for the AWS GovCloud (US) Region provides an easy way to access the service.

With this regional expansion, Amazon Translate is available in the following AWS Regions: US East (N. Virginia), US East (Ohio), US West (Oregon), EU (Ireland), and AWS GovCloud (US). Refer to this Region Table for the latest region list. Today, Amazon Translate supports text to or from English to Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. Support for the following additional languages coming soon: Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and Turkish.

Learn more about AWS GovCloud (US) here or contact the AWS GovCloud (US) team with any questions. Visit the Amazon Translate product page to learn more about the service.

About the Author

Woo Kim is a Product Marketing Manager for AWS machine learning services. He spent his childhood in South Korea and now lives in Seattle, WA. In his spare time, he enjoys playing volleyball and tennis.