Lok Sabha Question No. 632 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2025-12-03
Subject: Development of National AI Compute Infrastructure
Ministry: ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Asked by: Shri Shashank Mani

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA

## MINISTRY OF ELECTRONICS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 632

TO BE ANSWERED ON: 03.12.2025

## DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL AI COMPUTE INFRASTRUCTURE

## 632.  SHRI SHASHANK MANI:

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

- (a) the steps taken by the Government under the IndiaAI Mission to develop a national Artificial Intelligence (AI) compute infrastructure;
- (b) the status of Public-Private Partnerships for AI model development and research; and
- (c) whether the Government proposes to establish regional AI innovation hubs to promote startups and digital skilling?

## ANSWER

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

(a) to (c ): 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 is developing a strong AI ecosystem. Global rankings such as Stanford AI index place India among the top countries in AI skills, capabilities, and policies to use AI. India is also the secondlargest contributor to GitHub AI projects, showcasing its vibrant developer community.

## IndiaAI Compute Capacity Pillar

This pillar under the IndiaAI Mission aims to provide high-end compute power (GPUs) to all, including MSMEs and startups, at an affordable cost.

- National AI compute capacity is operationalised through empanelled AI service providers offering GPU access on cloud at subsidised rates
- Government of India provides access to these GPUs at subsidised rates. Average rate is ~ ₹65 per GPU per hour, except for select high -end GPUs
- As on date, 38,231 GPUs have been onboarded from 14 empanelled service providers under the IndiaAI Compute Capacity framework.

Empanelled providers also provides storage, networking, AI platforms & other supporting services necessary for AI model development and deployment

## IndiaAI Foundation Models

The  IndiaAI  Foundation  Models  pillar  focuses  on  developing  India's  own  Large  Multimodal Models (LMMs) trained on Indian datasets and languages.

- Twelve  organisations  and  consortia,  including  startups,  industry  players  and  academic institutions, including Sarvam AI, Soket AI, Gnani AI, Gan AI, Avatar AI, IIT Bombay Consortium (BharatGen), GenLoop, Zentieq,  Intellihealth,  Shodh  AI,  Fractal  Analytics Ltd. and Tech Mahindra Maker's Lab, have been selected for developing Large and Small Language Models based on Indian datasets
- Government is supporting compute costs and providing up to an additional 25% of compute expenditure for other development activities
- The funding structure includes a combination of grants and equity support.
- Resulting AI models are intended to contribute to the open-source ecosystem and support innovation across India's startup and research community

Objective is to enhance national technological capability and reducing dependence on foreign AI systems using this unique public-private Partnerships for AI Model Development

## Strengthening regional AI Innovation and skilling

The IndiaAI FutureSkills pillar aims to develop a strong pool of AI-skilled professionals and to strengthen regional AI innovation across the country.

- 27  IndiaAI  Data  and  AI  Labs  have  been  established  in  Tier-2  and  Tier-3  cities,  in collaboration with NIELIT
- IndiaAI Data and AI Labs being setup at 174 ITIs and Polytechnics across 27 States/UTs

Under the IndiaAI FutureSkills initiative, the Government is also supporting AI capacity building through  fellowships  for  PhD,  postgraduate  and  undergraduate  students,  with  more  than  228 fellowships awarded till date.

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