A Strategic View of India's AI Mission: Opportunities and Implementation

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a distant future. It is already here, reshaping industries and everyday life. In Episode 5 of India for the World, a leadership podcast by Mint and BCG, host Shouvik Das explores India’s rapidly evolving AI ecosystem with Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Electronics and IT and CEO of the IndiaAI Mission, and Saibal Chakraborty, Managing Director and Senior Partner at BCG.

Their conversation unpacks how India is making AI accessible to the masses, addressing computing power shortages and building indigenous solutions that could serve as blueprints for the Global South. From subsidised GPUs to voice-first large language models (LLMs), the IndiaAI Mission is laying the groundwork for both local innovation and global impact.

Key Stats and Insights from Episode 5

• 38,000+ GPUs available under the IndiaAI Mission at ₹65/hour (<$1) compared to $2.5–$3 globally.
• 2,800+ datasets accessible via the AIKosh platform for startups and researchers.
• 12 Indian entities including academia, startups, companies among others, (Sarvam, Soket, Gnani, Gan, Avatar AI, IIT Bombay Consortium – Bharat Gen, Fractal Analytics, Tech Mahindra Maker’s Lab, Zenteiq, GenLoop, Intellihealth, Shodh AI ) building indigenous foundation models, including a voice-first LLM.
• India ranks 2nd globally in GitHub contributions to AI projects.
• 6,000 AI startups in India today, with 53% of overall funding flowing into AI ventures.
• 20+ international MoUs signed for digital transformation and AI collaboration with Global South nations.

Solving the Compute Shortage: GPUs at Scale

One of the biggest barriers to AI development worldwide is access to compute power. India has tackled this head-on by partnering with 15 service providers to deliver 38,000+ GPUs at a fraction of global costs.

Abhishek Singh explains, “With GPUs available at just ₹65 per hour, startups, researchers and entrepreneurs can access world-class compute at affordable rates. This was a key bottleneck, and we have solved it to a large extent.”

This democratisation of compute ensures that AI innovation is not just limited to large corporations but also empowers students, researchers and early-stage startups to experiment and scale.

AIKosh: India’s Sandbox for Innovation

To make AI development more inclusive, the IndiaAI Mission launched AIKosh, a first-of-its-kind platform offering datasets, models and tools in one place. Designed to be India’s version of Hugging Face, it already hosts over 2,800 datasets and has been used by lacs of entrepreneurs and researchers.

By creating a sandbox environment, AIKosh enables innovators to experiment, test and deploy solutions quickly, accelerating India’s AI pipeline from idea to impact.

Indigenous Foundation Models: Building for India, Scaling Globally

India’s AI journey goes beyond applications; it is now investing in homegrown foundation models.

12 Indian entities including academia, startups, companies among others — Sarvam, Soket, Gnani, Gan, Avatar AI, IIT Bombay Consortium – Bharat Gen, Fractal Analytics, Tech Mahindra Maker’s Lab, Zenteiq, GenLoop, Intellihealth, Shodh AI building indigenous multi-modal and small language models, including a voice-first LLM.

Unlike Western models optimised for English, India’s focus is on multilingual and voice-first AI. As Abhishek notes, “Our vision is a voice-based LLM that works across all Indian languages. If it works in India, it will work anywhere.”

Such models could transform access for the 500 million Indians still offline and later extend to the Global South, where linguistic diversity is equally vast.

Public Infrastructure Meets Private Innovation

India’s AI ecosystem is being built on two complementary pillars: public infrastructure and private-sector ingenuity. On the government’s side, the focus has been on creating common enablers such as affordable compute, standardised datasets and indigenous foundation models. These act as shared resources, similar to the role Aadhaar and UPI played in digital transformation, so that startups and enterprises have the necessary resources to build AI models and applications fine-tuned to India’s needs.

At the same time, the private sector is innovating on top of these foundational layers. Here, Saibal Chakraborty emphasises the need for driving startups to address critical challenges in priority sectors like agriculture, healthcare and education. He notes that less than 10% of global AI funding naturally flows into these areas, as most capital gravitates towards consumer tech and fintech. Through targeted initiatives such as Hackathons and funding support under the IndiaAI Mission, startups are being encouraged to address these high-impact but underserved sectors. This is an approach that could benefit not only India but also other countries in the Global South.

Together, these dual efforts - public infrastructure from the state and problem-solving from private enterprises - are designed to create an inclusive and impactful AI ecosystem.

Voice as the Future of AI Interfaces

Both guests predict a voice-first AI future, where keyboards may disappear within a decade. For farmers, shopkeepers and first-time internet users, speaking in local languages will become a natural way to access digital services.

The IndiaAI Mission is already testing voice-enabled tools on smartphones and feature phones, allowing farmers to ask questions like: “What is the price of bajra in the nearest mandi?” and receive instant answers in their mother tongue.

This leap could make AI the ultimate equaliser, expanding its benefits to the last mile.

India’s AI Diplomacy: A Model for the Global South

Just as UPI inspired digital payment systems abroad, India is positioning its AI infrastructure as an exportable model. With 20+ MoUs already signed, nations in Asia and Africa are looking to replicate India’s low-cost compute, AIKosh platform and ethical AI frameworks.

The upcoming India-AI Impact Summit in February 2026 in New Delhi aims to formalise this vision by building a global AI repository of use cases across critical sectors.

Final Thoughts: From Catching Up to Leading the Way

The AI race has often been viewed as a two-player game between the US and China. But India is quietly shaping a third path, one rooted in accessibility, affordability and inclusivity. By solving for compute costs, language diversity and socially relevant use cases, India is not just catching up but also redefining what AI for the world could look like. While it is still early days, the IndiaAI Mission has the potential to set global benchmarks in democratised innovation, turning India into both a laboratory and a lighthouse for the AI-powered future.

Note to readers: This article is part of Mint’s paid consumer connect Initiative. Mint assumes no editorial involvement or responsibility for errors, omissions, or content accuracy.

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