Why in the News?
- Recently, the Office of the Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the Government of India released a working paper emphasizing that open access to AI infrastructure is critical for the nation’s technological growth.
- The paper advocates for the democratization of “foundational AI resources”—specifically compute capacity, high-quality datasets, and enabling tools—to prevent a monopoly by large firms and urban centers.
- Furthermore, as India prepares to host the AI Impact Summit in early 2026, the government is focusing on integrating Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) (like UPI and Aadhaar) with AI to ensure small-scale players, startups, and researchers can compete globally.
IndiaAI Mission: Core Identity
The IndiaAI Mission is a comprehensive national-level program aimed at establishing a robust and self-reliant AI ecosystem in India.
- Vision: “Making AI in India and Making AI Work for India.”
- Budget & Timeline: Approved in March 2024 with an outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore over five years.
- Implementation: Executed by the “IndiaAI” Independent Business Division (IBD) under the Digital India Corporation (DIC) of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
Seven Strategic Pillars of IndiaAI Mission
- IndiaAI Compute Pillar: This is the mission’s backbone. It aims to establish a public AI compute infrastructure with over 10,000 Graphics Processing Units (GPUs).
- Recent Progress: As of late 2025, India has expanded its accessibility to 38,000 GPUs, providing affordable “Compute-as-a-Service” for researchers and startups at subsidized rates (approx. ₹65/hour).
- IndiaAI Innovation Centre: Dedicated to the development and deployment of indigenous Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) and domain-specific foundational models in critical sectors.
- AIKosh (Dataset Platform): A secure, unified platform that streamlines access to high-quality, non-personal datasets. It currently hosts over 5,500 datasets across 20+ sectors to help developers build models without starting from scratch.
- IndiaAI Foundation Models: Focuses on creating sovereign capabilities by developing India’s own foundational AI models trained on local languages and data. Notable startups like Sarvam AI and BharatGen are key partners.
- IndiaAI FutureSkills: Aimed at human capital development. It supports 13,500 scholars (including 500 PhDs and 5,000 postgraduates) and has established a network of 570 AI Data Labs across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities.
- IndiaAI Startup Financing: Provides risk capital and acceleration support. The IndiaAI Startups Global program helps domestic startups expand into international markets (e.g., partnerships with Station F in Paris).
- Safe and Trusted AI: Focuses on Responsible AI through governance frameworks, bias mitigation tools, and the establishment of the IndiaAI Safety Institute (AISI) to ensure ethical technology adoption.
AI Kosha: India’s National AI Dataset Platform
- About AI Kosha: AI Kosha is a core component of the IndiaAI Datasets Platform, created to provide India-specific, high-quality datasets for artificial intelligence development.
- Purpose: Most global AI models are trained on Western, English-dominated datasets, which limits their effectiveness in India’s multilingual, multicultural, and socio-economic context.
- Key Objective: To enable the development of context-aware, unbiased, and inclusive AI models that reflect India’s languages, realities, and use-cases.
- Key Features
- Provides India-centric datasets for researchers, startups, and developers.
- Includes Indian language datasets, such as translation and language-processing models.
- Supports open and responsible data access for AI innovation.
- Significance for AI Development: While open-source AI models exist, locally relevant data is essential for accuracy, fairness, and usability in India. AI Kosha helps reduce cultural and linguistic bias in AI systems.
- Strategic Impact
- Enables Indian companies to build indigenous Generative AI models.
- Reduces dependence on foreign AI platforms.
Key Technological Components of IndiaAI Mission
- Graphics Processing Unit (GPU): A high-performance computer chip designed for parallel processing. In the AI context, GPUs are essential because they can process the massive mathematical workloads required to train and run neural networks much faster than a standard CPU.
- Large Language Model (LLM): An AI system that processes vast amounts of text to understand and generate human-like language. India is focusing on Multilingual LLMs to serve its 22 scheduled languages.
Key Government Initiatives and Achievements
- Centres of Excellence (CoEs): Centres of Excellence (CoEs): Four specialized centers focused on Healthcare, Agriculture, Sustainable Cities, and Education (announced in Budget 2025) to drive sector-specific research.
- Bhashini Platform: A language translation platform that breaks digital barriers. It leverages AI to provide voice-based services in regional languages, ensuring that non-English speakers can access government services
- BharatGen AI: BharatGen AI: Launched in June 2025, it is the world’s first government-funded, multimodal homegrown LLM. It captures India’s cultural and linguistic nuances across 22 languages
- India AI Impact Summit 2026: Upcoming global event to showcase India’s AI ecosystem, launch flagship programmes, and foster international collaboration.
- Sustainability Focus: Emphasises energy-efficient AI infrastructure to manage rising electricity demands from data centres.
- Digital ShramSetu Mission: A NITI Aayog roadmap (2025–2035) to empower 490 million informal workers using voice-first AI and blockchain-based credentialing to dismantle language and literacy barriers.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Everyday Life and Work
- Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to computer systems capable of performing tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, pattern recognition, language understanding, and decision-making.
- A key subset of AI is Large Language Models (LLMs), which learn from vast datasets to understand and generate human-like text, enabling chatbots, translation tools, and virtual assistants.
AI in Everyday Life and Work
AI is driving a transformative shift across sectors by improving efficiency, accuracy, accessibility, and inclusion. India’s AI approach emphasizes ethical use, public good, and inclusive development, aligning technology with national priorities.
Healthcare
- AI enables early disease detection, medical image analysis, and personalised treatment recommendations.
- AI-powered telemedicine connects rural patients with specialists, reducing cost and time.
- India participates in HealthAI and global collaborations through ICMR–IndiaAI, promoting safe and ethical AI in healthcare.
Agriculture
- AI predicts weather patterns, detects pest infestations, and optimises irrigation and sowing schedules.
- Kisan e-Mitra, an AI-based virtual assistant, helps farmers access schemes like PM-Kisan.
- National Pest Surveillance System and Crop Health Monitoring integrate satellite data, soil inputs, and weather analytics.
Education and Skilling
- Under NEP 2020, AI education is introduced from Class VI, with an optional AI subject from Class IX–XII (CBSE).
- DIKSHA platform (NCERT) uses AI features like read-aloud tools and smart video search, improving accessibility.
- YUVAi (Youth for Unnati and Vikas with AI) trains students (Classes 8–12) to apply AI across sectors such as Krishi, Aarogya, Shiksha, and Vidhi aur Nyaay.
Governance and Justice Delivery
- Under e-Courts Project Phase III, AI tools like Machine Learning, OCR, and NLP improve case management, translation, and scheduling.
- AI Translation Committees enable translation of judgments into regional languages.
- Platforms like e-HCR and e-ILR enhance transparency and access to justice.
Weather Forecasting and Climate Services
- India Meteorological Department (IMD) uses AI for rainfall, fog, lightning, fire, and cyclone prediction.
- Advanced Dvorak Technique estimates cyclone intensity.
- MausamGPT (upcoming) will provide real-time weather advice to farmers and disaster managers.
AI and Employment: Opportunity, Not Threat
- India’s AI workforce is projected to grow from ~6–6.5 lakh to over 12.5 lakh by 2027 (NASSCOM).
- Demand is rising in AI engineering, data science, analytics, and data curation.
- FutureSkills PRIME (MeitY) focuses on reskilling and upskilling in AI and emerging technologies, with millions enrolled.
AI for Inclusive Societal Development
- NITI Aayog’s “AI for Inclusive Societal Development” (2025) outlines using AI, IoT, blockchain, robotics, and immersive learning to empower India’s informal workforce (~490 million).
- The proposed Digital ShramSetu Mission aims for voice-first AI, smart contracts, micro-credentials, and on-demand skilling to overcome language, literacy, and payment barriers.
- Implementation is planned in phases (2025–2035), from mission design to nationwide rollout.
AI Kosha, recently seen in the news, is best described as:
(a) A national AI ethics regulatory body
(b) A government-funded Large Language Model
(c) A unified platform providing India-centric AI datasets
(d) A supercomputing facility for defence research
Answer: (c) A unified platform providing India-centric AI datasets
Explanation:
Option (c) is correct: AI Kosha is a unified national platform under the IndiaAI Datasets initiative that provides India-centric, high-quality datasets for researchers, startups, and developers. Its objective is to support the development of context-aware, inclusive, and unbiased AI models tailored to India’s linguistic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity.
Option (a) is incorrect: AI Kosha is not a regulatory or ethics body; governance and ethical oversight are addressed under the Safe and Trusted AI pillar of the IndiaAI Mission.
Option (b) is incorrect: AI Kosha does not develop a Large Language Model; instead, it supplies the datasets that can be used to train such models.
Option (d) is incorrect: AI Kosha is not a supercomputing or defence-specific facility; compute infrastructure is covered under the IndiaAI Compute Pillar.
