Lok Sabha Question No. 531 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-07-23
Subject: Enhancement of Critical AI Infrastructure
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Dr. Shashi Tharoor

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 531

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 23.07.2025

## ENHANCEMENT OF CRITICAL AI INFRASTRUCTURE

## 531. DR. SHASHI THAROOR:

Will the Minister of ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY be pleased to state:

- (a) the details of the planned investment (in crores) by the Government for enhancing critical AI infrastructure over the next 12 months in light of the Economic Survey 2024-25 emphasizing the infrastructure and efficiency of AI;
- (b) the current status of major AI infrastructure development projects nationwide e.g., number of AI research centres, data hubs or pilot projects initiated during the last year;
- (c) the measurable milestones (such as processing capabilities or data throughput improvements) set to be achieved before widespread AI adoption is realised in the country;
- (d) whether any set guidelines or evaluation criteria have been put in place to assess the practicality and reliability of new AI models especially low-cost AI models like DeepSeek R1 and overly complex generative AI models that disregard factual correctness; and
- (e) if so, the details thereof and if not, the reasons therefor?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF STATE FOR ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SHRI JITIN PRASADA)

(a) to (e):    India's AI strategy is based on the Hon'ble Prime Minister's vision to democratize the use of technology. It aims to address India centric challenges, create economic and employment opportunities for all Indians.

## AI ecosystem in India at present:

India has a strong information technology ecosystem. It generates annual revenues of more than 250 billion dollars and provides employment to more than 6 million people.

Global rankings such as Stanford AI rankings place India among the top countries in AI skills, capabilities,  and  policies  to  use  AI.  India  is  also  the  second-largest  contributor  to  GitHub  AI projects, showcasing its vibrant developer community.

## India's AI strategy:

India's AI strategy aims to position India as a global leader in artificial intelligence. Government launched  IndiaAI  mission  in  March  2024.  It  is  a  strategic  initiative  to  establish  a  robust  and inclusive AI ecosystem aligned with India's development goals.

The IndiaAI Mission comprises of the following 7 key pillars:

- It  aims  to  provide  high-end  compute  power  (GPUs)  to  all,
- IndiaAI  Compute  Capacity: including MSMEs and startups, at an affordable cost.
- As on date, 34,381 GPUs have been onboarded from 14 empanelled service providers.
- Government of India provides these GPUs at a subsidized cost. The average rate for these GPUs is about Rs 65 per GPU per hour.
- IndiaAI Foundation Models: To develop India's own Large Multimodal Models (LMMs) trained on Indian datasets and languages. This is to ensure sovereign capability and global competitiveness in generative AI.
- AIKosh: To develop large datasets for training AI models. AIKosh is a unified data platform integrating datasets from government and non-government sources.
- IndiaAI Application Development Initiative: This pillar aims to develop AI applications for India  specific  challenges  in  sectors  such  as  climate  change  and  disaster  management, healthcare, agriculture, governance, and assistive technologies for learning disabilities.
- IndiaAIFutureSkills: To develop AI skilled professionals in India by increasing the number of graduates, post-graduate and PhDs in AI domain. It also envisions setting up Data and AI Labs in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities across India.
- IndiaAI Startup Financing: To provide financial assistance to AI start-ups.
- Safe & Trusted AI: To balance innovation with strong governance frameworks to ensure responsible AI adoption.

## AI Research, Analytics and Knowledge Dissemination Platform (AIRAWAT):

- Government has developed AIRAWAT for providing a common compute platform for AI research and knowledge assimilation.
- This AI computing infrastructure is being used by technology innovation hubs, research labs, scientific  communities,  industry  and  start-ups,  and  institutions  with  National  Knowledge Network.
- The  200  AI  Petaflops  AIRAWAT  integrated  with  210  AI  Petaflops  of  PARAM  Siddhi supercomputer has been ranked 75 th in top 500 supercomputers in the world.

## National Supercomputing Mission (NSM):

- Government of India had launched NSM in 2015 to build indigenous capacity for high-end supercomputing systems, and reduce dependency on foreign technologies.
- Under NSM, a total of 37 supercomputers with a cumulative compute capacity of 39 Petaflops have been deployed across the country.
- These systems are hosted at leading academic institutions, research organizations, and R&D labs including IISc, various IITs, C-DAC, and institutions located in Tier-II and Tier-III cities to support the growing HPC and AI compute demands of the research community.

Further, Government has developed a 'Standard for Fairness Assessment and Rating of Artificial Intelligence Systems' (TEC Standard No: TEC 57050:2023).  This standard provides a framework and  procedures  for  evaluating  the  fairness  of  AI  systems,  particularly  in  the  context  of telecommunications and related ICT applications. It aims to help ensure that AI systems used in these domains are free from unintended biases that could have negative consequences.

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