According to a white paper released by the government, India is working to establish a sustainable and competitive foundation for artificial intelligence (AI) model capacity to support long-term national requirements and reduce structural dependence on external providers.
Prepared by the office of the principal scientific adviser to the government of India, the document outlined a strategy to enable inclusive and affordable AI adoption across Indian languages, regions and sectors through a layered ecosystem of large models, multimodal systems and small language models.
The paper noted that foundation models serve as a critical enabling layer in modern AI systems because they can be adapted for multiple applications, reducing the need to train separate models from scratch for each task.
As per the paper, India’s strategy focuses on developing indigenous capabilities across the entire foundation model stack. Instead of relying on a single large model, the country plans to build an ecosystem that combines shared computing access, India-specific data and model repositories, and multiple model development initiatives spanning text, speech, multimodal and sector-specific applications.
The white paper also outlined India’s approach to building and governing such systems through public-private collaboration while ensuring trust, accountability and responsible deployment. It emphasised that the versatility of foundation models makes them a crucial component of the AI ecosystem and an important area for domestic innovation. Developing indigenous models has therefore been identified as a strategic priority to support inclusive growth and public good while aligning with India’s legal framework, values and security interests.
The document also noted that the global foundation model landscape is increasingly shaped by access to enabling infrastructure, including advanced computing capacity, data centres, specialised chips and large, high-quality datasets.
Further, it observed that several countries are strengthening domestic AI capabilities, treating computing infrastructure and semiconductor supply chains as strategic assets, while also introducing regulatory frameworks and governance mechanisms to ensure responsible AI development. India’s approach, the white paper stated, focuses on building national capacity to train and deploy AI models at scale while expanding access through collaborative platforms and public-private participation.
