CMU Sphinx is an open-source speech recognition system developed at Carnegie Mellon University. It allows computers to understand and process human speech, making it useful for various applications like voice commands and transcription services. The system supports multiple languages and can be customized for specific tasks. The software includes several components, such as acoustic models and language models, which help improve accuracy. CMU Sphinx is designed to be flexible and can run on different platforms, including mobile devices and embedded systems, making it accessible for developers and researchers in the field of speech technology.