MeitY Launches Roadmap to Build India as a Global AI Talent and Innovation Hub
SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth | SDG 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
Institutions: Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has announced a detailed roadmap under the IndiaAI Mission to position India as a global hub for artificial intelligence innovation, skills, and trusted governance. The initiative, backed by an outlay of ₹10,371 crore over five years, is being implemented through the Digital India Corporation (DIC) as the executing agency.
At the heart of the Mission are seven integrated pillars designed to build a full-spectrum AI ecosystem:
Compute Capacity – Establishing a national AI compute grid equipped with 38,000 GPUs to provide affordable, on-demand access for startups, academia, and public research institutions.
AI Applications – Driving adoption across priority sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, and governance, with demonstrator projects showcasing AI’s social and economic impact.
AIKosh – A unified India-centric dataset platform providing open, standardised, and multilingual datasets to strengthen research, innovation, and model training.
Foundation Models – Encouraging the creation of home-grown large language and multimodal models, including BharatGen AI, trained on Indian languages and contexts to enhance digital inclusion.
FutureSkills – Integrating AI literacy across schools, universities, and vocational systems, and offering advanced fellowships to build a globally competitive AI workforce.
Startup Financing – Supporting early-stage AI ventures through seed funding and accelerator programmes, complemented by access to national compute and data infrastructure.
Safe and Trusted AI – Establishing ethical, transparent, and accountable AI governance frameworks, including algorithmic audits, bias detection, and explainability protocols.
The Mission envisions AI as both an economic multiplier and a public-good enabler. With over six million people already employed in India’s technology sector, AI adoption could contribute an estimated USD 1.7 trillion to India’s GDP by 2035. MeitY’s plan also includes Centres of Excellence in AI, a National AI Portal 2.0, and an AI Competency Framework for civil servants, reinforcing institutional capacity and digital readiness across government.
Implementation will follow a phased roadmap:
2025–26: Orientation, infrastructure rollout, and institutional setup.
2026–27: Integration of FutureSkills curricula, AI literacy pilots, and governance frameworks.
2027–29: Expansion of foundation models, startup scaling, and sectoral AI deployments.
Post-2029: National and global partnerships for frontier AI research and exportable solutions.
The roadmap deepens India’s position in the global AI economy while embedding responsible technology principles into national development. It directly advances the objectives of Digital India 2.0, Skill India Mission, and the National Education Policy 2020. By investing in compute capacity, indigenous innovation, and AI literacy, the Mission seeks to balance sovereignty, safety, and scale—ensuring that the economic dividends of AI translate into inclusive growth and digital trust.
What is the IndiaAI Mission? → The IndiaAI Mission is the Government of India’s flagship programme to accelerate the country’s AI capabilities through a whole-of-government approach. It aims to provide shared compute and data infrastructure, promote foundational and applied research, support startups, and build ethical governance frameworks. Its goal is to position India among the top global AI innovation hubs by 2030 while ensuring technology inclusion and trust.
What is the Digital India Corporation (DIC)? → The Digital India Corporation is a not-for-profit company set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to spearhead innovation, implementation, and capacity-building under the Digital India programme. It functions as the project execution and incubation arm for emerging technology initiatives—including AI, IoT, blockchain, and digital public infrastructure—and supports ministries, state governments, and startups in adopting scalable, citizen-centric digital solutions. DIC also anchors IndiaAI, MyGov, and other flagship digital governance platforms.
Follow the full update here: https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2178092