Pratyush Kumar

From pioneering Indian-language AI tools to co-founding a full-stack GenAI startup, Pratyush Kumar has been reshaping the contours of AI in India. A graduate of IIT Bombay (BTech) and ETH Zurich (PhD), he began his career at Microsoft Research, IBM Research, and IIT Madras before co-creating AI4Bharat and PadhAI—initiatives that brought deep learning and language AI tools to classrooms and open-source developers.

In 2023, Kumar joined forces with VivekRaghavan to launch Sarvam AI, a Bengaluru-based startup dedicated to developing sovereign generative AI systems for India. Under his guidance, Sarvam AI focuses on multilingual voice-first applications and foundational models optimised for Indian languages and dialects.

Kumar has published over 89 papers and enjoys the trust of global investors. Sarvam raised $41 million in a Series A funding round led by Lightspeed, PeakXV, and Khosla Ventures.

His vision is clear: build GenAI that understands and responds in India’s native tongues and cultural contexts, creating tools that are as inclusive as they are innovative. With Sarvam AI chosen by the IndiaAI Mission to lead the development of a sovereign LLM, his mission to democratise AI continues to scale.