Context:

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has today become a decisive factor shaping global power balances, economic competition, and social transformation. Countries that adopted AI early, through policy support, investments, and institutional reforms, are now leading in innovation, productivity, and global influence. India, too, stands at the cusp of this transformation.

• • • AI is no longer confined to research laboratories or large corporations; it has entered citizens’ lives at every level. The recent roundtable interaction between Prime Minister Modi and Indian AI startups, along with the upcoming India AI Impact Summit 2026, clearly indicates that India views AI not merely as a technological upgrade but as a core national development strategy.

India’s AI Ecosystem: The Current Landscape:

• • • India’s technology and AI ecosystem is expanding rapidly. The sector’s annual revenue is estimated to exceed USD 280 billion, employing over six million professionals. The country hosts more than 1,800 Global Capability Centers (GCCs), over 500 of which are focused on AI.
    • The startup ecosystem is equally vibrant: out of nearly 180,000 startups, a significant share of new ventures is integrating AI into products and services.
    • At the global level, India’s position has strengthened considerably. According to Stanford University’s Global AI Vibrancy Tool (2025), India has emerged as the world’s third most competitive country in AI—an outcome of the convergence of talent, research, investment, and policy support.

IndiaAI Mission: The Foundation of India’s AI Strategy:

The central pillar of India’s AI journey is the IndiaAI Mission, approved in March 2024 with an outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore. Operating under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology as an independent business division, the mission’s vision—“Making AI in India and Making AI Work for India”—combines digital sovereignty with public welfare.

Seven Pillars of the IndiaAI Mission:

• • • IndiaAI Compute Pillar: Provides high-end GPUs at affordable costs. More than 38,000 GPUs have already been onboarded.
    • IndiaAI Application Development Initiative: Focuses on AI applications tailored to India’s unique challenges in healthcare, agriculture, climate change, governance, and assistive education technologies (e.g., CyberGuard AI Hackathon).
    • AIKosh (Dataset Platform): Develops large datasets for training AI models by integrating data from government and non-government sources, enabling developers to focus on solutions rather than basic data preparation.
    • IndiaAI Foundation Models: Builds India’s own large multimodal models using Indian data and languages, ensuring sovereign capability and global competitiveness in generative AI.
    • IndiaAI Future Skills: Trains AI-skilled professionals by establishing data and AI labs in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
    • IndiaAI Startup Financing: Provides financial support to AI startups; launched in March 2025.
    • Safe and Trusted AI: Ensures responsible AI adoption through strong governance, focusing on machine unlearning, bias mitigation, privacy-preserving machine learning, explainability, auditing, and governance testing.

Applications of AI:

• • • Agriculture: AI supports farmers through weather forecasting, pest and disease detection, and irrigation advisory systems. Satellite data and soil analysis improve yields and income security.
    • Healthcare: AI-based diagnostics, telemedicine, and personalized treatment plans are reducing rural–urban healthcare disparities, saving time and cost while minimizing errors.
    • Education and Skill Development: Personalized learning, multilingual content, and AI-assisted platforms are making education more inclusive. Integration of AI skills under the National Education Policy 2020 is preparing a future-ready workforce.
    • Governance and Justice: E-courts, AI-based translation, and document analysis are improving access to justice. Multilingual availability of judgments enhances transparency.
    • Weather and Climate Services: AI strengthens India’s disaster prediction and response capabilities. Advanced Dvorak techniques help estimate cyclone intensity.
    • Governance and Judicial Services: Under Phase III of the e-Courts Project, modern technologies are being integrated to make the justice system more efficient and accessible. Platforms like e-HCR and e-ILR provide online access to judgments in multiple regional languages, enhancing transparency and inclusiveness.

Other Major Government Initiatives and Policy Incentives:

• • • AI Centres of Excellence: Three Centres of Excellence have been established in healthcare, agriculture, and sustainable cities to promote research-driven innovation. Additionally, five National Skill Centres of Excellence prepare youth with industry-relevant AI skills.
    • AI Competency Framework: Provides structured AI training for government officials, enabling informed policymaking and AI-driven governance aligned with global standards.
    • Sarvam AI: Smarter Aadhaar Services: The Bengaluru-based company Sarvam AI is transforming advanced AI research into practical governance solutions. In partnership with UIDAI, it uses generative AI to make Aadhaar services smarter and more secure.
    • Bhashini: A Voice for Digital Inclusion: Bhashini is an AI-powered platform offering translation and conversational tools in multiple Indian languages, enabling citizens to access digital services regardless of literacy barriers.
    • BharatGen AI: India’s Multilingual AI Model: Launched at the BharatGen Summit on June 2, 2025, BharatGen AI is the first government-funded indigenous multimodal large language model, supporting 22 Indian languages and integrating text, speech, and image understanding.
    • India AI Impact Summit 2026: India will host the AI Impact Summit in February 2026, showcasing its AI capabilities and promoting innovation across sectors.

Challenges:

• • • Data Quality and Privacy: Fragmented data, inconsistent quality, and lack of standardization affect AI accuracy. Protecting citizens’ personal data, especially in health, identity, and financial services is a major concern.
    • Algorithmic Bias and Ethics: AI trained on biased data can reinforce social discrimination based on caste, gender, region, or language, raising concerns about equality and constitutional values.
    • Digital Divide: Rural and Marginalized Communities: Unequal access to digital infrastructure, connectivity, and literacy limits AI’s reach, potentially deepening socio-economic inequalities.
    • Regulatory Balance: Innovation vs. Control: Policymakers must strike a balance between promoting innovation and ensuring safety, ethics, and public interest.

Conclusion:

India’s AI journey conveys a clear message: technology must serve inclusion, empowerment and justice, not efficiency alone. Through the IndiaAI Mission, inclusive policies, and sector-specific applications, India is emerging not only as a technologically capable nation but also as a socially responsible AI power. As the country advances toward the goal of Viksit Bharat @2047, AI stands as a tool that strengthens both economic growth and human values.