Key Takeaways

* ₹10,300+ crore allocated over five years for IndiaAI Mission with 38,000 GPUs deployed.
* 6 million people are employed in the tech and AI ecosystem.
* Indian Tech sector is projected to cross $280 billion in revenue this year.
* AI could add $1.7 trillion to India’s economy by 2035.

India stands at the cusp of a new era powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), where technology is transforming lives and shaping the nation’s progress. AI is no longer limited to research labs or big corporations. It is reaching citizens at every level. From improving healthcare access in remote areas to helping farmers make informed crop decisions, AI is making daily life simpler, smarter, and more connected. It is revolutionising classrooms through personalised learning, making cities cleaner and safer, and enhancing public services through faster, data-driven governance.

Initiatives such as the IndiaAI Mission and the Centres of Excellence for AI are at the heart of this transformation. They are expanding access to computing power, supporting research, and helping startups and institutions create solutions that directly benefit people. India’s approach focuses on making AI open, affordable, and accessible, ensuring that innovation uplifts society as a whole.

This inclusive vision is also reflected in NITI Aayog’s report, ‘AI for Inclusive Societal Development’ (October 2025). The report shows how AI can empower India’s 490 million informal workers by expanding access to healthcare, education, skilling, and financial inclusion. It highlights how AI-driven tools can boost productivity and resilience for millions who form the backbone of India’s economy. The report also stresses that technology can bridge deep social and economic divides, ensuring that the benefits of AI reach every citizen.

AI Ecosystem in India at Present

    India’s technology sector is expanding rapidly, with annual revenues projected to cross USD 280 billion this year.
    Over 6 million people are employed in the tech and AI ecosystem.
    The country hosts 1,800+ Global Capability Centres, including more than 500 focused on AI.
    India has around 1.8 lakh startups, and nearly 89% of new startups launched last year used AI in their products or services.
    On the NASSCOM AI Adoption Index, India scores 2.45 out of 4, showing that 87% of enterprises are actively using AI solutions.
    Leading sectors in AI adoption include industrial and automotive, consumer goods and retail, banking, financial services and insurance, and healthcare. Together they contribute around 60 percent of AI’s total value.
    About 26% of Indian companies have achieved AI maturity at scale, according to a recent BCG survey.

As India builds an inclusive AI ecosystem, its growing global recognition reflects this progress. Rankings such as the Stanford AI Index place India among the top four countries in AI skills, capabilities, and policies. The country is also the second-largest contributor to AI projects on GitHub, highlighting the strength of its developer community. With a strong STEM workforce, expanding research ecosystem, and growing digital infrastructure, India is positioning itself to harness AI for economic growth, societal progress, and the long-term vision of Viksit Bharat by 2047.

India AI Mission
Guided by the vision of “Making AI in India and Making AI Work for India”, the Cabinet approved the India AI Mission in March 2024, with a budget outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore over five years. The mission marks a defining step towards making India a global leader in Artificial Intelligence.

Since its launch, the mission has made strong progress in expanding the country’s computing infrastructure. From an initial target of 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs), India has now achieved 38,000 GPUs, providing affordable access to world-class AI resources.

The seven pillars of the IndiaAI Mission

1. IndiaAI Compute Pillar
This pillar provides high-end GPUs at affordable costs. As mentioned earlier, over 38,000 GPUs have been onboarded. These GPUs are available at a subsidized rate of just ₹65 per hour.

2. IndiaAI Application Development Initiative
This pillar develops AI applications for India-specific challenges. Sectors include healthcare, agriculture, climate change, governance, and assistive learning technologies. Thirty applications have been approved by July 2025. Sector-specific hackathons are organized with ministries and institutions. For example, the CyberGuard AI Hackathon helps develop AI solutions for cybersecurity.

3. AIKosh (Dataset Platform)
AIKosh develops large datasets for training AI models. It integrates data from government and non-government sources. The platform has over 5,500 datasets and 251 AI models across 20 sectors. These resources help developers focus on AI solutions instead of building basic modules. The platform has over 385,000 visits, 11,000 registered users, and 26,000 downloads by December 2025.

4. IndiaAI Foundation Models
This pillar develops India’s own Large Multimodal Models using Indian data and languages. It ensures sovereign capability and global competitiveness in generative AI. IndiaAI received over 500 proposals. In the first and second phase, twelve startups were selected: Sarvam AI, Soket AI, Gnani AI, Gan AI, Avaatar AI, IIT Bombay consortium – BharatGen, Zenteiq, Gen Loop, Intellihealth, Shodh AI, Fractal Analytics, Tech Mahindra Maker’s Lab.

5. IndiaAI Future Skills
This pillar builds AI-skilled professionals. Support is provided to 500 PhD fellows, 5,000 postgraduates, and 8,000 undergraduates. Over 200 students received fellowships by July 2025. 73 institutes onboarding PhD students. Data and AI Labs are being set up in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Thirty-One labs have been launched with NIELIT and Industry Partners. States and UTs nominated 174 ITIs and polytechnics for labs.

6. IndiaAI Startup Financing
This pillar provides financial support to AI startups. The IndiaAI Startups Global program launched in March 2025. It helps 10 Indian startups expand into the European market in collaboration with Station F and HEC Paris.

7. Safe and Trusted AI
This pillar ensures responsible AI adoption with strong governance. 13 projects have been selected and initiated through Expressions of Interest. They focus on machine unlearning, bias mitigation, privacy-preserving ML, explainability, auditing, and governance testing. An additional expression of interest was published on 9 May 2025 for partner institutions to join the IndiaAI Safety Institute.

Other Key Government Initiatives and Policy Push

The Government of India is turning its Artificial Intelligence vision into action through a series of transformative initiatives. These efforts are focused on building a robust AI ecosystem, promoting innovation, and ensuring that technology serves every section of society. From creating world-class research hubs to developing homegrown AI models, the government’s approach combines policy, infrastructure, and capacity-building in equal measure.

Centres of Excellence for AI
To encourage research-driven innovation, the government has set up three Centres of Excellence (CoEs) in key sectors such as Healthcare, Agriculture, and Sustainable Cities. A fourth CoE for Education was announced in Budget 2025. These centres are designed to serve as collaborative spaces where academia, industry, and government institutions come together to develop scalable AI solutions. Alongside, five National Centres of Excellence for Skilling have been established to prepare the youth with industry-relevant AI skills, building a future-ready workforce.

Sarvam AI: Smarter Aadhaar Services
Sarvam AI, a Bengaluru-based company, is translating advanced AI research into practical governance solutions. In partnership with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), it is using generative AI to make Aadhaar services smarter and more secure. In April 2025, Sarvam AI received approval to build India’s Sovereign LLM Ecosystem, an open-source model designed to enhance public service delivery and promote digital trust.

Bhashini: Voice for Digital Inclusion
Bhashini is an AI-powered platform that breaks language barriers by offering translation and speech tools in multiple Indian languages. It helps citizens access digital services easily, even if they are not comfortable reading or writing. In June 2025, the Digital India Bhashini Division and the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) signed an MoU to deploy multilingual AI solutions across public-facing railway platforms.

Since its launch in July 2022, Bhashini has crossed one million downloads, supports 20 Indian languages, and integrates more than 350 AI models. With 450+ active customers, it continues to promote digital inclusion and bridge linguistic divides.

BharatGen AI: India’s Multilingual AI Model
Launched on 2 June 2025 at the BharatGen Summit, BharatGen AI is the first government-funded, homegrown multimodal large language model. It supports 22 Indian languages and integrates text, speech, and image understanding.

Built using domestic datasets, BharatGen captures India’s cultural diversity and provides a common platform for startups and researchers to create AI solutions tailored to Indian needs.