Advancing India’s Sovereign, Multilingual AI Ecosystem for Public Good.
Sanchita Chatterjee, BS News Agency, PIB: Building Homegrown AI for a Digital India.
India’s emergence as a global digital power now hinges on its ability to build artificial intelligence systems that are indigenous, inclusive, and aligned with national priorities. As AI increasingly shapes governance, public services, industry, and citizen engagement, the need for homegrown foundational models has become important. These models must be trained on Indian languages, local data, and real-world contexts to ensure relevance and effectiveness.
Built with the vision of creating AI systems specifically for India, Sarvam AI is an organization that is developing artificial intelligence tailored to India’s needs by building foundational components and applying them to the country’s unique linguistic, enterprise, and governance requirements. The company has built a full-stack AI platform, with everything developed, deployed, and governed entirely in India. These enterprise grade platforms reflect the country’s linguistic diversity and are designed to support public service delivery. Its work directly addresses long-standing barriers in accessibility, multilingual communication, and dependence on foreign AI infrastructure.
Driving Digital Self-Reliance through Indigenous AI Models
Strengthening indigenous AI infrastructure is central to India’s vision of technological sovereignty, digital self-reliance, and inclusive growth. In an era where artificial intelligence shapes governance, economic competitiveness, and citizen services, building AI systems rooted in local languages, datasets, and regulatory frameworks ensures that innovation aligns with national priorities and societal needs. Indigenous AI development not only safeguards strategic autonomy but also fosters economic resilience and equitable access to emerging technologies.
In this context, Sarvam AI stands out as one of the 12 organisations selected under the Innovation Centre pillar of the IndiaAI Mission to develop indigenous foundational models, with financial and compute support amounting to ₹246.72 crore. As a key implementation partner of the Government of India, Sarvam has been granted subsidised access to high-performance compute infrastructure through the Shakti cluster. The facility comprises over 4,000 GPUs dedicated to large-scale model training. Leveraging this company is building large language and speech models (LLMs) tailored for Indian languages and public service delivery, with capabilities such as voice-based interfaces, document processing, and citizen-centric applications that enhance accessibility and ease of use. By developing homegrown AI models aligned with national objectives, Sarvam AI is reducing reliance on foreign AI systems while strengthening the open-source ecosystem and enabling innovation across startups, academia, research institutions, and industry.