• India has taken a major leap forward in artificial intelligence development with the expansion of its national AI infrastructure to 34,000 Graphic Processing Units (GPUs).

• IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said significant progress has been made on India AI Mission, with focus on democratisation of technology.

• The government is actively shaping an AI ecosystem where computing power — GPUs — and research opportunities are accessible at an affordable cost.

• Initiatives such as the IndiaAI Mission and the establishment of Centres of Excellence for AI are strengthening the country’s AI ecosystem, paving the way for innovation and self-reliance in this critical sector.

• In March 2024, the Union Cabinet approved an allocation of over Rs 10,300 crore for the IndiaAI Mission.

• The government has initiated the second phase of its AI Compute Services program, adding 16,000 new GPUs to the existing 18,000, creating a robust shared computing facility for the country’s AI ecosystem. 

• The expanded compute capacity on cloud will provide a common computational AI platform for training and inference, crucial to develop indigenous foundational models and AI solutions tailored to the Indian context.

• Vaishnaw further said that 367 datasets have already been uploaded to AI Kosh.

Three more indigenous foundation models

• The IndiaAI foundation model pillar within India AI Mission aims to develop and deploy indigenous foundational models trained on India-specific data. 

• Put simply, foundation models in generative AI are large, pre-trained models that form the base for a variety of AI applications.

• On April 26, 2025, Sarvam AI was selected to build India’s sovereign large language model (LLM) ecosystem, developing an open source 120 billion parameter AI model to enhance governance and public service access through use cases.

In addition to Sarvam AI, three more proposals have been selected following a rigorous multi-stage expert evaluation:

i) Soket AI will develop India’s first open-source 120 billion parameter foundation model optimised for the country’s linguistic diversity, targeting sectors such as defence, healthcare, and education.

ii) Gnani AI will build a 14 billion parameter Voice AI foundation model delivering multilingual, real-time speech processing with advanced reasoning capabilities.

iii) Gan AI will create a 70 billion parameter multilingual foundation model targeting ‘Superhuman TTS (text-to-speech)’ capabilities to surpass current global leaders.

The way ahead

• India’s rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, underpinned by strategic government initiatives, have positioned the country as a global AI powerhouse. 

• By expanding AI infrastructure, fostering indigenous AI models, enhancing digital public infrastructure, and investing in talent development, India is creating an inclusive and innovation-driven ecosystem. 

• The emphasis on open data, affordable access to high-performance computing, and AI-driven solutions tailored to local needs ensures that the benefits of AI reach businesses, researchers, and citizens alike. 

• As AI adoption accelerates across industries, India’s proactive approach is not only strengthening its digital economy but also paving the way for self-reliance in critical technologies.

(The author is a trainer for Civil Services aspirants.)