Category Center for ICT for Development

image1 1

IndiaAI Mission (2024): Building Compute Sovereignty for Strategic Autonomy

Samiksha Muskan

Background

The Union Cabinet approved the IndianAI Mission in March 2024 with a budget outlay of Rs. 10,371.92 crore as a national initiative to build an end-to-end artificial intelligence ecosystem in India. Officially, the mission seeks to democratise access to compute, improve data quality, develop indigenous AI capabilities, attract talent, support start ups, encourage socially relevant applications and promote responsible AI. The larger policy vocabulary surrounding the mission is significant: the Cabinet note explicitly links IndiaAI to “tech sovereignty”, indicating that the programme is not merely industrial policy but also a strategic response to concentrated foreign control over advanced AI infrastructure.

image1 2

Digital Development Compass 2026: Reading India’s Digital Governance 

1. Background: What Is the Digital Development Compass? 

Governments across the world routinely describe themselves as pursuing 'digital transformation,' yet few possess a comparative, evidence-based way of establishing where they actually stand. The Digital Development Compass (DDC), developed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), was built to close this gap. Rather than functioning as one more competitive ranking, the Compass is designed as a diagnostic: a visualisation of a country's digital indicators, drawn entirely from publicly available datasets, that allows a government to identify its own strengths and weaknesses and locate itself within a five-stage digital maturity scale.

Prisha

From Hackathons to Impact – Assessing the IndiaAI Application Development Initiative (2024)

The IndiaAI Mission was launched in March 2024 with a total outlay of ₹10,371.92 crore over five years to build a comprehensive AI ecosystem in India. The mission's overarching goal is "AI for All," democratising access to computing power, developing indigenous foundation models, and promoting AI adoption across critical sectors including agriculture, healthcare, governance, disaster management, and climate resilience. With the AI market currently valued at approximately $120 billion and growing by more than 20% annually, the mission aims to position India as a global AI leader by 2030

WhatsApp Image 2026 09 11 at 19.58.33

Gujarat’s Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence, 2025

Gujarat has emerged as a pioneer in India's artificial intelligence landscape with the establishment of its Centre of Excellence for Artificial Intelligence, Gandhinagar. Inaugurated on 27 January 2025 by Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, the CoE reflects the state's proactive vision to integrate emerging technologies into governance, industry, and skill development. 

Aashi

IndiaAI Datasets Platform (AIKosh) 2025: A Unified National Datasets Platform for AI Innovation

India generates one of the largest volumes of data globally, yet this data remains fragmented across ministries, institutions, and private silos. This fragmentation posed a critical challenge for students, researchers, and innovators seeking authentic, machine-readable, and India-specific datasets. Consequently, reliance on Western datasets like ImageNet has been noted as a contributing factor to the limited representation of India's linguistic diversity, socio-economic realities, and local contexts in AI models.

Talk to Us