Parliament Question: Status of India’s AI ecosystem

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 3247 TO BE ANSWERED ON: 20.03.2026 STATUS OF INDIA’S AI ECOSYSTEM 3247. SHRI PARIMAL NATHWANI: Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state: (a) the current status of India’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem across the five layers, viz. application, model, chip, infrastructure and energy; (b) the major AI applications deployed by Government and industry in sectors such as health, agriculture, education, governance and defence; (c) whether India possesses indigenous large scale AI models and the extent of dependence on foreign models and platforms; and (d) the status of domestic capabilities in AI chips, compute infrastructure, data centres and availability of reliable and affordable energy to support AI growth? ANSWER MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI JITIN PRASADA) (a) to (d): The Government is developing the Artificial Intelligence (AI) ecosystem in the country, covering key layers, viz., applications, AI models, compute, infrastructure, and energy. IndiaAI Mission was launched in March 2024 to build a robust and inclusive AI ecosystem by focusing on the development of applications, foundational models, datasets, compute infrastructure, innovation support and talent development. Application layer The Government is promoting widespread adoption of AI across sectors such as agriculture, healthcare and education. These solutions are already delivering impact, including AI-based sowing advisories and early disease detection. The IndiaAI Mission is also supporting the development of 30 India-specific AI applications to accelerate large-scale AI adoption and deliver real-world benefits to citizens. Details in Annexure - 1. Sector-focused hackathons and innovation challenges with multiple Ministries have also led to the identification of 10 startups for scaling up solutions. Model layerUnder this layer, Government is supporting the development of indigenous foundational AI models, with 12 organisations/consortia selected in the first phase. Alongside this, smaller and specialised models are also being developed to drive practical applications. Models developed by Sarvam AI, BharatGen and Gnani were launched during the IndiaAI Impact Summit 2026. These models have shown strong performance on Indic language benchmarks and, in some cases, perform better than leading frontier models on specific tasks. E.g. models developed by Sarvam AI have demonstrated relatively high accuracy in document understanding and Indic language processing. Compute layer Compute is required for training and inference, powered by advanced processors such as GPUs, TPUs and other server-grade chips. Under the IndiaAI Mission, researchers, startups and academia are getting access to over 38,000 GPUs. These are offered at a subsidised average rate of ₹65 per hour, which is about one-third of the global average cost. Under the Semicon India Programme, ten semiconductor projects have been approved, including two fabrication units and eight ATMP facilities. These facilities will ultimately strengthen India’s chip development capacity and support future AI infra needs. Infrastructure layer Government is developing the data centre and digital infrastructure ecosystem required to support large-scale AI deployment. Union Budget 2026-27 announced granting a tax holiday till 2047 to companies providing cloud services globally by using data centres from India. AI Impact Summit 2026 also witnessed announcements of investment commitments exceeding USD 250 Billion across the AI value chain comprising of infrastructure, foundation models, hardware, and applications. Energy layer Data centres and AI infrastructure require significant and reliable power supply. The Government is working to ensure the availability of sustainable and reliable energy to support this growing demand. The government recognises nuclear energy as an important source of clean and round-the-clock power for energy-intensive digital infrastructure. In this regard, Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India (SHANTI) Act has been enacted to strengthen the nuclear energy ecosystem. This will enable the development of reliable power solutions for emerging sectors such as AI and data centres, including the future deployment of small modular and micro nuclear reactors. Semicon India ProgrammeThe Government approved the Semicon India programme as a pan-India programme for the development of a semiconductor & display manufacturing ecosystem. The focus is on developing a complete ecosystem, ranging from talent pool, design, fabrication, assembly, testing, packing, and module manufacturing. Achievements: • In a short span of three years, it has seen an investment commitment of about Rs 1.6 Lakh Cr. • 10 units have been approved, including 2 fabs and 8 ATMPs/OSATs and construction work is going on rapidly • Commercial production in one unit and Pilot production in 3 units has already started • These projects are expected to produce more than 24 Bn chips /annum from packaging facilities and 55000 wafer starts per month (WSPM) from fabrication facilities • 24 projects approved for the design of semiconductor chips and SoCs, with a total project value of Rs. 900 crore, including investments in design infrastructure o These projects address critical sectors such as video surveillance, drone detection, energy metering, microprocessors, satellite communications, and broadband and IoT SoCs o Out of 24 projects, 14 companies have raised venture capital funding to scale up and productise their solutions o ₹650 crore raised in VC funding by Indian semiconductor startups o 7 chips have been successfully fabricated out of 16 designs taped out across multiple foundries, including advanced nodes such as 12 nm at TSMC • 105 fabless chip design companies have been supported with access to advanced chip design infrastructure, cumulatively consuming 60 lakh hours of tool usage • 315 universities are getting access to advanced EDA tools for the students. So far, the usage of these tools has exceeded 185 lakh hours • 146 designs taped out by 49 institutions across India out of which SCL has successfully fabricated and packaged 94 student-designed chips Building on the success of the Semicon India Programme, the Union Budget 2026-27 announced that the India Semiconductor Mission 2.0 will be launched to produce equipment and materials, design full-stack Indian IP and fortify supply chains. *******Annexure-I The details of shortlisted AI solution under IndiaAI Application Development Initiative are as under: Sl. Name of the Solution Solution Description Theme No. 1 Promoting regenerative In-house developed MRV (Measurement, Agriculture agriculture practices for a Reporting, and Verification) technology sustainable future using AI designed to ensure the integrity and quality of generated carbon credits. 2 Krishi Sah‘AI’yak - Farming AI-powered conversational co-pilot to Agriculture Co-pilot provide personalized advisory to farmers in Indic languages 3 Kadalcompass - We 5G-enabled device that transforms fishing Agriculture Amplify the voice of water practices using AI, IoUT, and advanced using Hydro-AI,Underwater communication technologies com,IoUT with Sensor Network 4 KissanCopilot Multilingual Powered by Dhenu's vertical LLM for Agriculture Multimodal personalized AI agriculture, provides personalized Assistant for small holder agricultural advisory services to farmers smallholder farmers. 5 Rapid, chemical-free soil End-to-end soil testing approach Agriculture testing solution using NIR leverages an offline app, AI-powered Spectroscopy & AI/ML spectral device, and ML models to deliver models timely, chemical-free soil analysis. 6 AI deep-tech driven quality SAAS platform to provide objective Agriculture assessment of Maize quality assessment of maize including price estimation & sales pipelining. 7 AI-Driven Live Fish AI-driven solution that optimizes Agriculture Logistics and Mortality aquaculture operations Reduction in Aquaculture 8 QScan AI-powered IoT solution that captures Agriculture critical data throughout the fresh produce lifecycle, providing real-time analysis of food quality and actionable insights to sellers. 9 Heatwave Resilience: Integrates AI-based climate forecasting Climate Integrating AI-based with health data to develop a targeted risk Advanced Forecasting for classification system for heat-health Extreme Heat Events impacts 10 Multi-Hazard Susceptibility hazard management system to predict Climate Mapping Landslides, Debris Flows and Flash Floods11 DeepFlood: Rapid flood Advanced flood inundation mapping tool Climate inundation mapping using using SAR data and deep learning models Vision Transformers and for real-time, automated flood detection Satellite Data 12 ⁠Moskeet: Climate impact on AI-powered platform integrates real-time Climate mosquito-borne diseases climate data with mosquito tracking to predict and prevent disease outbreaks. 13 End to End AI Cloud AI cloud platform for radiology Healthcare Platform for Radiology diagnosis, integrating innovative Diagnosis technologies such as CV, GenAI, NLP, Dicom, mobile, and cloud computing 14 NIDAAN (iNtegrated lung qXR, an advanced AI tool for interpreting Healthcare health screening & chest X-rays (CXR), detects & localizes tuberculosIs Detection 30+ findings. through Ai At National scale) 15 Impactful AI solution, early detection of vision threatening Healthcare preventing preventable retinal abnormalities blindness, for socio- economic transformation. 16 AI Powered Wearable AI Enabled Hardware Platform for Joint Healthcare Technology for Detection & Pain Diagnostics and Rehabilitation Diagnosis of Segments of Healthcare Musculoskeletal Joint Health Pain. 17 VoxelBox Neuro-informatics platform that allows to Healthcare map the functional maps / connectomics of the human brain 18 Development of Ocellux: An Portable, affordable and highly accessible Healthcare AI-Based Solution for retina imaging device powered by AI for Enhanced Early Diabetic early detection of eye diseases like Eye Screening in INDIA. Diabetic Retinopathy, AMD & Glaucoma 19 Revolutionizing healthcare AI-powered personal doctor available Healthcare using doctor-led AI 24x7 and free of cost, designed to assist people when they are sick, monitor their health through wearables, and act as a health coach to prevent diseases. 20 AI/ML enabled MafPro MafPro handheld detector provides a Healthcare device platform for cancer radiation-free, non-invasive, safe and staging, localization, and cost-effective solution that can reliably margins. detect and adequately evaluate metastasesin lymph nodes using AI/ML based algorithms 21 Readabled (Online Dyslexia web-based application designed to help Learning Training) children with dyslexia improve phonetic disabilities awareness through interactive exercises. 22 Voice fusion AI AI application to provide assistive support Learning to individuals with SLDs in multiple disabilities Indian languages 23 ScreenPlay - a digital game Digital, game-based screening tool Learning based screening tool for designed to identify children aged 3 to 6 disabilities autism and related disorders. who may be at risk for autism or related developmental conditions 24 Jiveesha AI-powered diagnostic platform for early Learning detection of SLDs disabilities 25 Adaptive Learning and Advanced AI techniques to detect Learning Detection for SLDs Specific Learning Disabilities (SLDs) disabilities such as dyslexia, dysgraphia, and dyscalculia. 26 Special Educator AI AI-driven system designed to address Learning India’s shortage of special educators and disabilities support children with SLDs. 27 ConvoZen.AI by NoBroker AI-powered conversational platform that Governance Technologies automates customer engagement across channels like chat, voice, email, and social media, offering fast, personalized, and multilingual support. 28 AI contact center AI-powered technologies like machine Governance translation, NLP, ASR and TTS, and multilingual voice recognition to enhance governance by improving communication and accessibility across India’s linguistic diversity 29 Adalat AI: AI solutions for AI-powered platform provides real-time Governance Courts multilingual transcription, translation, live case flow management, and WhatsApp chatbots to streamline courtroom operations 30 Gov.Civis.Vote AI-powered Digital Public Infrastructure Governance designed to transform public consultations in India by making citizenengagement more inclusive, scalable, and comprehensive *******