NEW DELHI: India is standing on a major technological transition, powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). What was once confined to research laboratories and large corporations is now reaching citizens across different sectors and regions. AI is shaping everyday life by improving healthcare delivery in remote areas, supporting farmers with data-driven crop decisions, transforming classrooms through personalised learning, strengthening public services through faster governance and contributing to cleaner and safer cities.
The Government of India has placed an inclusion policy for its AI strategy. National initiatives such as the IndiaAI Mission and the Centres of Excellence for AI are designed to ensure that AI remains open, affordable and accessible to everyone. The programmes focus on increasing computing capacity, supporting research, enabling startups and institutions to create solutions to directly serve the needs of the public. Indian approach reflects a broader goal of using AI not only for technological advancement, but for societal upliftment and national development.
Understanding Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence refers to the ability of machines to perform tasks that require human intelligence. These include learning from experience, recognising patterns, making decisions, solving complex problems and communicating in natural language. AI systems work using large datasets, algorithms and models that analyse information and generate outputs. Over time, these systems have improved their performance by allowing them to adapt to new situations and operate with increasing accuracy.
This inclusive vision aligns closely with the NITI Aayog report ‘AI For Inclusive Societal Development’, published in October 2025. This report elaborates on how AI technology could enable the 490 million informal-sector workers in India by facilitating access to healthcare, education, skills training, and financial services. This report emphasises that technology is capable of mitigating significant gaps in society.
Indian AI Ecosystem in current scenario
India’s technology sector continues to expand. Annual revenues are projected to cross USD 280 billion this year. More than 6 million people are currently employed across the technology and AI ecosystem. There are more than 1,800 Global Capability Centers with over 500 specifically working in AI. The Indian startup ecosystem is a testimony to how AI has been adopted at a rapid pace. There are roughly 1.8 lakh startups in the country and close to 89% of newly formed startups last year used AI in their products/services.
The NASSCOM AI Adoption Index reveals that India has a score of 2.45 out of 4 and 87 per cent of their enterprises are using AI solutions. Industrial and automotive sectors, consumer goods and retail, banking and financial services, insurance and healthcare together contribute around 60 per cent of AI’s total value in India.
A recent BCG survey shows that about 26 per cent of Indian companies have achieved AI maturity at scale. Globally, India’s progress is reflected in international rankings. The Stanford AI Index ranks India among the top four nations in AI capabilities and policy structures. It is also the second-largest contributor of AI-related projects on GitHub. The country is benefiting from its talented STEM workforce. Indian initiatives aim at ensuring that AI helps achieve the vision of Viksit Bharat 2047.
Global Recognition in AI Competitiveness
India is also ranked the third most competent country in the world in terms of Artificial Intelligence competitiveness by the Stanford University 2025 Global AI Vibrancy Tool. The rating is measured on the basis of the growth and innovation achieved in the field of artificial intelligence from 2017 to 2024 and the potential and competence that the countries have in the artificial intelligence sector.
IndiaAI Mission: The Building Block of AI in India
The mission is guided by the vision of “Making AI in India” and “Making AI Work for India”. The Union Cabinet cleared the India AI Mission in the month of March 2024. The mission involves a total outlay of Rs 10,371.92 crore. This initiative is a major milestone on the path toward making India a world leader in artificial intelligence.
One of the mission’s most significant accomplishments has been the development and expansion of the computing infrastructure. The AI mission is planned to have a total of 10,000 GPUs on board; the country already has 38,000 GPUs in the general population. The system offers a high-power computing resource at a subsidised rate of Rs 65 per hour.
A GPU or Graphics Processing Unit, is a specialised computer chip that enables faster processing of images, AI workloads and complex calculations compared to traditional processors. GPU are essential for training and running modern AI models efficiently.
The IndiaAI Mission is delivered by IndiaAI, which is an autonomous business unit operated by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The IndiaAI Mission comprises eight key pillars that can help build an innovative and responsible AI ecosystem.
Seven Fundamental Principles of the IndiaAI Mission:
The first pillar, dubbed IndiaAI to compute, primarily aims at ensuring that affordable access is available to elite GPUs. Over 38,000 GPUs have already been onboarded into the program to prevent computing power from being concentrated in the hands of only a few.
The second pillar, IndiaAI Application Development Initiative, promotes AI application development to address India-specific challenges. Priority sectors include healthcare, agriculture, climate change, governance and assistive learning technologies. By July 2025, thirty applications had been approved. The initiative also conducts sector-specific hackathons in collaboration with ministries and institutions. One such example is the CyberGuard AI Hackathon, which focuses on cybersecurity solutions.
The third pillar is the AIKosh National Dataset Platform. It is a platform that consolidates datasets from government and non-government sources for model training. It currently contains over 5,500 datasets and 251 AI models across 20 sectors. As of December 2025, it recorded more than 385,000 visits, 11,000 registered users, and 26,000 downloads.
The fourth pillar is about IndiaAI Foundation Models. The purpose of this initiative is to develop a large multimodal model based on Indian data and languages to ensure sovereign generative AI capability. More than 500 proposals were received, and twelve startups were selected across the first two phases. These include Sarvam AI, Soket AI, Gnani AI, Gan AI, Avaatar AI, the IIT Bombay-led BharatGen consortium, Zenteiq, Gen Loop, Intellihealth, Shodh AI, Fractal Analytics and Tech Mahindra Maker’s Lab.
The fifth pillar is IndiaAI Future Skills. It aims to develop a strong pool of AI talent. It supports 500 PhD fellows, 5,000 post-graduate students and 8,000 undergraduate students. More than 200 students have been provided with fellowships by July 2025 and 73 institutes have admitted students to the PhD program. Data and AI Labs will be established in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, with 31 Data and AI Labs launched in association with NIELIT and industry partners. The states and Union Territories have nominated 174 ITIs/polytechnics to establish laboratories.
The sixth pillar, IndiaAI Startup Financing, is a funding support service for AI-related startups. The IndiaAI Startups Global initiative, launched in March 2025, assists ten Indian startups in entering the European market in partnership with Station F and HEC Paris.
The seventh pillar, Safe and Trusted AI, focuses on the responsible adoption of AI. Thirteen projects have been selected to address issues such as machine unlearning, bias mitigation, privacy-preserving machine learning, explainability, auditing and governance testing. An additional interest was issued on 9 May 2025 to expand participation in the IndiaAI Safety Institute.
Mission AI future of India
India’s AI strategy aligns well with the nation’s future interests. Contrary to expectations that the Indian approach would be market-based or piecemeal, the nation has established an integrated AI environment, focusing on innovation, inclusion, and sovereign considerations. With an investment of Rs 10,371.92 crores, the IndiaAI Mission has been offered an impetus to make affordable computing facilities, an Indian dataset and foundation models and responsible use of AI.
By subsidising the onboarding of 38,000 GPUs and promoting startups, researchers, and academia, the country is making the innovation process more democratic and less costly to enter. The vision has identified seven pillars underpinning the initiative to ensure that the development of AI encompasses the entire value chain and all aspects, from applications and infrastructure to skills and governance, thereby enabling the country to focus on its unique problems.
