India and AI - EconReads

India's strategy to build AI capabilities, from the IndiaAI Mission and shared computing to Indian-language models, and its advantages and challenges.

India aims to become a major player in AI, building on its large technology workforce, digital public infrastructure and huge, diverse population.

The IndiaAI Mission

In March 2024, the government approved the IndiaAI Mission with a budget of over 10,000 crore rupees over five years. Its components include:

Compute capacity: making thousands of GPUs available to start-ups, researchers and students at subsidised rates through shared infrastructure.
Foundation models: supporting Indian companies to build AI models trained for Indian needs and languages. In 2025, several start-ups were selected to develop such models.
Datasets: a platform to make non-personal datasets available.
Skills, applications and safe and trusted AI.

Language AI

India has 22 officially recognised languages and hundreds more spoken. Bhashini, a government platform launched in 2022, provides AI tools for translation, speech recognition and text-to-speech across Indian languages, aiming to make digital services accessible to people who do not use English. Such tools can especially help people with low literacy and blind users.

Advantages

Talent: India has one of the world’s largest pools of software engineers, and many AI researchers worldwide are of Indian origin.
Digital public infrastructure, such as Aadhaar and UPI, offers a base for AI applications.
A huge market and many real-world problems in agriculture, health and education where AI could help.
Global capability centres: many multinational companies run AI and technology centres in India.

Challenges

Computing capacity has lagged behind the United States and China.
Research funding and top-level research output are smaller.
Brain drain of AI researchers.
Data quality and availability in Indian languages.
Regulation and trust.

AI advice for a farmer

A farmer asks a question about pest damage in Marathi, speaking into a phone. A language AI converts speech to text, an AI system trained on agricultural data suggests remedies, and the answer is read back in Marathi. Without Indian-language AI, the farmer might not be able to use such a service at all.

Thinking India only uses AI built elsewhere

India imports much AI technology, but it is also building its own computing capacity, language tools and models suited to Indian languages and needs.

Key takeaways

The IndiaAI Mission, approved in 2024, has a budget of over 10,000 crore rupees.
It funds shared computing, Indian foundation models, datasets and skills.
Bhashini provides AI tools for Indian languages, supporting accessibility.
Talent and digital infrastructure are strengths; computing capacity and research funding are challenges.