India Pushes Indigenous AI Models

New Delhi, India – The Indian Government has released a white paper outlining a roadmap to develop indigenous artificial intelligence (AI) foundation models, signaling a significant move towards empowering the digital ecosystem and technological self-sufficiency in the country.

The report, titled ‘Advancing Indigenous Foundation Models’, is published by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India and is part of an ongoing AI Policy White Paper Series aimed at shaping the country’s artificial intelligence strategy.

The document emphasizes the need for AI systems developed and trained within India using datasets that mirror the linguistic, cultural, and socio-economic diversity of the country. As the paper suggests, the creation of such localized AI models will assist in enforcing transparency, inclusiveness, and better alignment with the Indian legal frameworks, public priorities, and security considerations.

Large AI systems that have been trained on large amounts of data, such as text, images, audio, and video, are foundation models. These models power a wide range of digital capabilities—from language translation and text summarization to question answering and classification—and are considered the backbone of many modern AI applications.

The white paper highlights the importance of both Large Language Models (LLMs) and Small Language Models (SLMs). While LLMs are designed to handle broad, multi-sector tasks, SLMs are typically specialized for specific domains and can be more cost-efficient to deploy.

Such AI models can be used in agriculture, health, and education, as well as the micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) sector within the Indian setting. It is expected that the combination of LLMs, SLMs, and multimodal AI systems will not only make languages more inclusive, affordable, and energy-efficient, but also allow innovation in new areas, including climate action, health services, education, and urban governance.

The Government is also promoting closer cooperation between the public institutions and private companies in order to fast-track the development of domestic AI capacities. A significant number of AI systems currently deployed in India are created abroad and trained on datasets that do not necessarily reflect the diversity of the country.

With the focus on the development of indigenous AI, India aims to create a more resilient digital infrastructure and secure a stronger position in the fast-changing world of AI scenarios.

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