Govt Backs 20 Indigenous AI Models Under IndiaAI Mission: Ashwini Vaishnaw

New Delhi: The Centre has identified 20 indigenous “sovereign” Artificial Intelligence (AI) model proposals for support under the IndiaAI Mission, Union Minister for Electronics and IT Ashwini Vaishnaw informed Parliament on Wednesday.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha, the minister said the proposals include 12 Large Language Models (LLMs) and eight Small Language Models (SLMs), aimed at strengthening India’s domestic AI ecosystem while creating economic opportunities and employment.

“The Government of India is supporting Indian startups and institutions to develop large language models. Twenty indigenous sovereign model proposals have been identified for support,” he said.

The IndiaAI Mission, built on the country’s $300 billion IT sector employing around 60 lakh people, focuses on seven pillars including AI models, applications, datasets, talent development and affordable compute infrastructure.

Highlighting progress, the minister said key indigenous initiatives include models by Sarvam AI, Gnani.AI, BharatGen and Avataar AI. Domain-specific SLMs for healthcare, language technologies and agentic AI systems are also under development.

On infrastructure, 15 compute service providers have been empanelled and 237 projects supported, with over 93.18 lakh GPU hours sanctioned for research and development.

The government said 12 national-level hackathons have led to 62 AI prototypes and deployment of 20 AI-based solutions. In talent development, 686 fellowships have been awarded across 178 institutions, while over 26.5 lakh individuals have completed the YUVA AI for All programme.

Additionally, 27 India Data and AI Labs have been set up, with 188 more in the pipeline, and 58 AI Centres of Excellence approved across states and Union Territories.

The minister added that the India AI Governance Guidelines, released on November 5, 2025, provide a framework for safe, responsible and inclusive AI development in the country.