AI Mission to Take Off with Fresh Allocation

PLANS IN PLACE TO CREATE OWN FOUNDATIONAL MODELS No provision made for semiconductor 2.0 scheme

- JATIN GROVER

The ₹10,000-crore IndiaAI mission is set to take off with the government chalking out plans for creating a domestic foundational model on the lines of US and China. The ball has been set rolling with the allocation in the Budget, with the tenders for procuring graphics processing units (GPUs) finalized.

In FY26, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has been allocated ₹2,000 crore for the IndiaAI mission, which is one-fifth of the total allocation. The increase in allocation is nearly four times higher than the budgetary allocation of ₹552 crore in FY25.

The actual spends, however, for FY25 were lower at ₹173 crore, as the government was preparing to empanel companies to bring in computing infrastructure in the country at a subsidized cost.

Last week, the government announced the empanelment of companies that will bring in over 18,000 GPUs for startups, academia, and researchers at affordable rates. The government will bear 40% of the bill for the usage of these GPUs by the beneficiaries.

An increase in budgetary allocation has come at a time when China's AI startup DeepSeek launched its foundational models at a significantly less cost compared to global peers like OpenAI, Gemini, etc. Further, the possibility of restrictions on exports by the US on GPUs prompted the industry and experts to stress the need for moving fast on developing sovereign AI plans.