The Central Government has selected 20 indigenous artificial intelligence (AI) models under the IndiaAI Mission, including 12 Large Language Models (LLMs) and eight Small Language Models (SLMs). The selected models will receive technical, computing and other required resources to support AI research, innovation, startups and employment in India.
According to Union Minister for Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw, the selected AI models will be supported under the IndiaAI Mission through technical assistance, computing infrastructure and other essential resources. The government said the initiative aims to strengthen the country's AI ecosystem by providing Indian startups and research institutions with a robust technological foundation.
The 20 selected models include prominent Indian projects such as Sarvam AI, BharatGen, Gnani.ai and Avataar AI.
Sarvam AI has attracted attention in recent months for its Indian AI model and has also been praised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Gnani.ai is developing speech-to-speech AI technology for Indian languages. BharatGen focuses on developing foundation models capable of understanding and operating across multiple Indian languages, while Avataar AI is working on video generation technology.
The government also stated that several specialised AI models are being developed for healthcare, local languages and agentic AI to create AI solutions tailored to India's requirements.
According to the government, the IndiaAI Mission is based on seven key pillars, including AI model development, application development, dataset creation, skill development, affordable computing access and research promotion.
To strengthen AI infrastructure, the government has onboarded 15 compute service providers under the mission. So far, 237 AI projects have been approved, and 9.3 million GPU hours of processing capacity have been made available. These resources will be accessible to startups, researchers and academic institutions across the country for large-scale AI model development.
The government also stated that 12 National AI Hackathons have been conducted to date, resulting in the development of 62 AI prototypes, while 20 AI-based solutions have been deployed in the market.
For AI talent development, fellowships have been awarded to 686 students from 178 higher education institutions. Under the YUVA AI for ALL programme, more than 2.6 million people have completed AI training. The government said 27 India Data and AI Labs have already been established, while work is underway to set up 188 additional laboratories. It also stated that 58 AI Centres of Excellence have been approved in collaboration with states and industry.
According to the government, these initiatives are intended to make India globally competitive in artificial intelligence, promote local innovation and create new technology jobs and startup opportunities for millions of young people in the coming years.
