Union Budget 2026 Allocates ₹1,000 Crore for IndiaAI Mission

The Union Budget 2026-27 has allocated ₹1,000 crore for the IndiaAI Mission to build domestic AI apabilities, even as utilisation of last year’s allocation remained partial.

In 2025–26, the government had earmarked ₹2,000 crore for the IndiaAI Mission. However, revised estimates stood at ₹800 crore.

The IndiaAI Mission, approved by the Union Cabinet in 2024 with a multi-year outlay of ₹ 10,370 crore, aims to create a national AI compute infrastructure, support startups, develop India-specific datasets, and expand AI skilling.

The Budget announcement comes ahead of the IndiaAI Impact Summit, scheduled for later this month in New Delhi. The event is expected to bring together policymakers, global technology firms, startups, and researchers to outline the next phase of the IndiaAI Mission.

Ashwini Vaishnaw, union information technology minister, previously confirmed that India’s homegrown large language models will be unveiled at the upcoming India AI Summit. IndiaAI Mission CEO Abhishek Singh had earlier told AIM that at least two LLMs—developed by Sarvam AI and BharatGen—would be launched ahead of the summit.

The minister said India will eventually develop 12 foundational AI models, each ranging between 50 and 120 billion parameters, designed to run on relatively small GPU clusters. This, he said, would enable low-cost AI services at scale. Vaishnaw noted that early live testing of Indian models has shown “very encouraging” real-world performance.

Under the IndiaAI Mission, the government has selected 12 startups and organisations to build sovereign foundational models: Sarvam AI, Soket AI Labs, Gnani.ai, Gan.AI, Avataar AI, BharatGen, Fractal Analytics, Tech Mahindra (Makers Lab), ZenteiQ Aitech Innovations, Genloop Intelligence, NeuroDX (IntelliHealth), and Shodh AI.