What Is RIVA Speech To Text? How To Set Up Server & Deploy

Interested in developing a speech-based application with the help of NVIDIA’s RIVA speech technology. This guide helps get started with custom app development using RIVA speech to text technology.

RIVA is a GPU-accelerated software development kit designed by NVIDIA for the development of real-time, multilingual speech and translation AI applications.

With latest Riva AI 2.19.0 version released on March 19, 2025 it has intrigue attention of the enterprises and developers for various conversational AI use cases.

Important: Presently, speech-to-text services are booming. According to the Fortune Business Insight, the global speech-to-text API market size was valued at USD 1,321.5 million in 2019 and is projected to reach USD 3,036.5 million by 2027, exhibiting a CAGR of 11.0% during the forecast period.

The speech recognition technology is widely used in digital assistants, and we frequently interact with them, such as smartwatches, smartphones, and music speakers. [Source: AIMagazine.com]

Constraints where fast and accurate transcription is necessary or real-time caption generation is important, NVIDIA’s GPU-based Riva AI is accelerating the task intelligently.

What Is RIVA Speech-To-Text?

RIVA speech to text is GPU accelerated and AI powered toolkit to build and deploy custom-based, real-time, multilingual speech and translation applications by utilizing NVIDIA Riva SDK.

Moreover, it trained on automatic speech recognition (ASR), text-to-speech (TTS), and neural machine translation (NMT) to develop conversational AI similar to ChatGPT or other. Go to NVIDIA Developer Riva page for deployment guide and risk.

Riva AI can be extremely helpful in virtual assistant, transcription service, multilingual communication, and digital avatar. Here’s a general working methodology (in visual).

How To Use Riva Speech To Text For Custom Development

Incorporate these steps to learn how to initialize Riva for your app development. This overview is ideal if you’re just starting and want to build custom applications using Riva’s Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), Text-to-Speech (TTS), or Translation capabilities.

1. Prerequisites

Make sure you have thess prerequisites to initialize RIVA set up to deployment.

• NVIDIA GPU (Ampere or later recommended)
• Ubuntu 20.04 or 22.04
• Docker installed and configured
• NVIDIA Container Toolkit installed
• NGC (NVIDIA GPU Cloud) account

2. Install NVIDIA Riva SDK

a) Install NGC CLI Tool

b) Configure NGC CLI

c) Download and Install Riva Quick Start

d) Download the Prebuilt Riva Models

e) Start Riva Services

3. Test the Basic Services

Once your RIVA server is running you can now test the running services using the following command.

4. Customize Your Model

To get the best result from your application, you must fine-tune Riva with your own datasets.

• Use NVIDIA NeMo to train a custom model (ASR, TTS, or NMT).
• Export it to a .riva format for smooth and hassle-free processing.
• Deploy using the Riva Model Repo system which you may find on GitHub.

Consider this sample example for converting NeMo to Riva.

5. Build Your Custom Application

You’re almost done! Once your Riva speech to text services are running and datasets converted successfully, you can integrate them into apps via gRPC or HTTP endpoints. Riva provides client APIs in Python, C++, and Java.

What Developers Can Build Using NVIDIA RIVA

With state-of-the-art Riva AI SDK, developers can build real-time, GPU-accelerated speech AI applications. Here is a complete list of development ideas.

1. Real-Time Speech-to-Text Applications

• Transcribe live audio from calls, meetings, or broadcasts.
• Generate closed captions or subtitles.
• Power voice note-taking or transcription services.
• Convert audio input into searchable text in video archives or podcasts.

2. Text-to-Speech (TTS) Systems

• Natural-sounding voice assistants (like Siri or Alexa).
• Audio versions of articles, blogs, and emails.
• Interactive kiosks or voice-enabled customer service apps.
• Custom-branded voices for products or services.

3. Real-Time Multilingual Translators

• Real-time speech translators for various conversations.
• Tools for international customer support.
• Live language interpretation services.

4. Intelligent Virtual Assistants

• Healthcare
• Finance
• Retail
• Education

5. Meeting and Call Transcription Services

• Transcribe Zoom or Teams meetings in real-time.
• Summarize key points using NLP.
• Provide speaker diarization.

6. Voice-Enabled Gaming or Virtual Reality

• Real-time voice control in games.
• NPCs with voice interaction capabilities.
• Audio narration or storytelling in VR/AR.

How To Earn Money From RIVA Speech To Text Technology?

Riva speech technology enables enterprises and developers to build next-gen transcription solution, voice-recognition software, conversational chatbots, and much more to earn money in various manners.

1. Launch a Speech-to-Text SaaS or API Service

By providing real-time transcription API for meetings, webinars, or podcasts like Otter AI (based on proprietary AI model) with closed captioning and industry-specific transcribers.

• Subscription plans
• Pay-per-minute usage
• Enterprise licensing

2. Sell Voice Cloning or Text-to-Speech Services

Another great way to earn money from RIVA AI technology is by selling TTS-powered voiceovers for audiobooks, videos, and ads.

• Freelance gigs on platforms like Fiverr/Upwork.
• Subscription to your voice-as-a-service platform.
• One-time licensing for a generated voice.

3. Real-Time Multilingual Translation Apps

By offering real-time translators or mobile app for live language translation.

• In-app purchases.
• Freemium model with usage limits.
• Subscription-based mobile or web app.

Frequently Asked Questions

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Ankita Sharma

Ankita is the Senior SEO Analyst as well as Content Marketing enthusiast at The Next Tech. She uses her experience to guide the team and follow best practices in marketing and advertising space. She received a Bachelor's Degree in Science (Mathematics). She’s taken quite a few online certificate courses in digital marketing and pursuing more.

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