New Delhi: The Government of India is advancing its ‘AI for All’ initiative, aligning with the prime minister’s vision to make artificial intelligence accessible across sectors. This effort aims to drive innovation, economic growth, and widespread adoption of AI technologies.
India has emerged as a global leader in AI and technology skills. The latest AI rankings place India among the top countries for AI capabilities and policy implementation. Stanford University has ranked India among the top four nations, alongside the US, China, and the UK, in its Global and National AI Vibrancy Ranking. GitHub has recognised India’s developers as the most active, contributing 24% of all global AI projects.
The government is committed to harnessing AI for public good across sectors while ensuring safety and trust in AI applications. The Maharashtra government has reported that Meta's AI model, currently in its early stages, is an informational chatbot.
The Union Cabinet approved the IndiaAI Mission on 7 March 2024, a strategic initiative designed to establish a strong and inclusive AI ecosystem. The mission is structured around seven key pillars: IndiaAI Compute, IndiaAI FutureSkills, IndiaAI Startup Financing, IndiaAI Innovation Centre, IndiaAI Datasets Platform, IndiaAI Applications Development Initiative, and Safe & Trusted AI.
A key component of this mission is the IndiaAI Innovation Centre (IAIC), which launched a call for proposals on 30 January 2025, inviting startups, researchers, and entrepreneurs to develop foundational AI models trained on Indian datasets. The goal is to create indigenous AI models that meet global standards while addressing India-specific challenges and opportunities.
In the first month, the IndiaAI Mission received 67 proposals by 15 February 2025, aimed at building India’s foundational AI models. Of these, 22 focus on large language models (LLMs) and large multimodal models (LMMs), while the remaining 45 are centred on domain-specific models (SLMs). Many SLMs target key sectors such as healthcare, education, and financial services. The proposals also include requests for funding and access to GPU resources.
The government has also expanded the Digital India Bhashini initiative to provide AI-driven language solutions across all 22 scheduled Indian languages, including Marathi. The Bhashini platform (https://bhashini.gov.in) offers voice-based access and supports content creation in Indian languages. It aims to develop speech-to-speech machine translation systems and a unified language interface to enhance digital accessibility. In collaboration with over 70 research institutes, Bhashini has developed more than 350 AI-based language models, covering automatic speech recognition (ASR), machine translation (MT), text-to-speech (TTS), optical character recognition (OCR), transliteration, and textual language detection across 17+ language services.
IndiaAI has partnered with Meta to establish the Centre for Generative AI, Srijan, at IIT Jodhpur. Additionally, in collaboration with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), it has launched the YuvAI Initiative for skilling and capacity building. This initiative will advance open-source AI development in India, enhance AI research capabilities, and contribute to the country’s goal of technological self-reliance. Through education, capacity building, and policy support, the government aims to equip researchers, students, and professionals with the tools needed for the responsible development and deployment of generative AI technologies.
To meet the growing demand for AI and data science professionals, the government has integrated AI and cybersecurity training into skill development programmes. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) conducts joint cybersecurity training programmes through CERT-In, collaborating with industry partners to enhance the cybersecurity workforce across government, public, and private sectors. Training sessions focus on AI-powered cyber threats, helping professionals stay informed about evolving risks and best practices. CERT-In also provided expert support for the Gen AI Exchange Hackathon in October 2024, which brought together developers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs.
MeitY’s FutureSkills PRIME programme offers reskilling and upskilling opportunities in emerging technologies such as AI, robotic process automation, augmented and virtual reality, the Internet of Things, big data analytics, additive manufacturing, cloud computing, social and mobile technologies, cybersecurity, and blockchain. The programme includes 119 courses specifically focused on AI.
The Visvesvaraya PhD Scheme, launched in 2014, supports full-time and part-time PhD candidates and young faculty members conducting research in electronics system design, manufacturing, and IT-related fields. The scheme provides financial assistance and infrastructure support to institutions engaged in advanced research.
The IndiaAI FutureSkills initiative aims to expand AI education by increasing the number of graduates, postgraduates, and PhD scholars in the field. It also focuses on setting up Data and AI Labs in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. IndiaAI Fellowships are awarded to students pursuing relevant undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at AICTE, NBA, NAAC, or UGC-recognised institutions. So far, 150 undergraduate students, 48 postgraduate students, and three PhD scholars have received fellowships. Additionally, IndiaAI has set up data labs at NIELIT Delhi and ICIT Nagaland, with plans for 27 more labs in collaboration with NIELIT across smaller cities.
This information was provided by the minister of state for electronics and information technology, Jitin Prasada, in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
BI Bureau
